


Toby and co. shenanigans

by Ruby_Rudd



Category: Creepypasta - Fandom, Marble Hornets
Genre: ? - Freeform, Bad Writing, Blood, Edge - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, From my quotev, Gen, Hot Topic - Freeform, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I'm bad at writing action, I'm bad at writing most of these characters??, Inappropriate Humor, M/M, Medication, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, More characters to be added, Multi, Murder, No Smut, Offensive humour, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Out of Character, Past Child Abuse, Polyamory, Proxy-centric, Psychosis, Sexual Themes, This Is STUPID, Toby is weird okay, Too much fluff, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence, a lot of dumb shit, ask me to tag certain triggers, dumb gays, he's a psychopath not a cute smol boi, hickeys but nothing more?, like jeff not being a uwu kawaii smol bean, not a lot of ships, not much though, oh wow theres actually a plot, oof - Freeform, premarital sex is a sin y'all, self care fluff, slender mansion au, slight age gap, some of these characters are more realistic, there will be memes, they are not good people, toby-centric, unestablished relationships, weird plot lines, yuck - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-04-06 15:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 48,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14059665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruby_Rudd/pseuds/Ruby_Rudd
Summary: "What do you mean I can't buy a cat?" Toby whined."Because we'll end up with 17 of them by the end of the week," Masky snickered."Not true,""Is so,"





	1. Sleepy Snuggles (pure fluff)

**Author's Note:**

> Chapters are always being edited oops

Working, working, working.

Running around, throwing punches, spending tedious amounts of time learning about the subject, building up a portfolio for them, stalking, killing.

It took a lot of effort and energy.

Things just got busier and busier with each day that passed, and frankly, the brunet was quite tired of it. The stress was starting to get to him, and he found himself getting frustrated easier. He just wanted to scream.

He wasn’t sure when the last time he slept was, or ate, or sat down.

Finally, there was a break in his busy schedule. Some time that one of the others must have set out for the three of them.

He unlaced his boots, sliding them off his sore feet. Ah, freedom. He’d forgotten what it felt like to not be wearing those clunky boots. He gladly plopped down on his comrade’s bed, sighing in relief. He closed his eyes and focused on his remaining senses.

The room was quiet, and a small bedside light glowed softly. Familiar mattress, familiar smells, not too familiar, but still something the twitchy boy was accustomed to. The bed sheets were cool to the touch, and the pillows were soft. He ended up in this bed far too often.

The main inhibitor of the room shuffled around, pulling off his sneakers and hoodie, crawling onto his bed next to Toby.

It was quiet. A soft, comforting quiet.

Toby focused on his breathing, his chest softly rising and falling, as his mind spiraled through time.

There was a soft but firm knock, provoking Hoodie- er- Brian to tiredly mutter “come in,”. They both knew very well who it was. As he unlaced his boots and carefully set aside his mask, he joined the two tired boys in Brian’s bed.

He sighed and curled up in between the other two boys, smiling softly.

“Does this job ever get any easier?” Toby probes, sitting up.

“Eh, it has its ups and downs. This has definitely been a rough week, though,” Tim shrugs.

“I don’t even know the last time I sat down, much less last time I laid down,”

“Then lay back down and fucking cuddle me, you nerd,” Brian mumbled.

Toby snorted softly before lying back down, scooting closer to the slightly lankier boys.

Brian, the tallest of the three, nestled in under the sheets, making sure the other two were comfortable. His short, peanut coloured hair was soft, and never failed to make the only slightly shorter chocolate haired boy smile. Toby was more noticeably shorter compared to Tim and Brian, but they were all still rather similar in height. Toby was also rather frail in build compared to the other two. Tim being built rather stocky, being the strong muscly boy he was. Brian being built similarly, though slightly less masculine, having a somewhat more petite body.

They weren’t really in a relationship or anything, but their dynamic was a little.. odd. If they wanted to kiss, they’d do so, if they wanted to cuddle, they would. It was rather complicated, not that any of them ever really realized that. It just was what it was. They never attempted to label it, or claim it to be one thing or another.

It was just a really weird sappy friendship.

Or something.

Toby’s wild, unkempt hair always bothered Tim. The smaller boy would shrug it off, claiming that Tim was just being a neat freak, and that he should keep himself and his fancy hair to himself. Admittedly, Toby couldn’t really complain about the older boy’s fancy hair, as he quite admired it.

Now that he thought about it, Toby admired a lot of things about Tim. He was quite musically gifted, not afraid to voice his opinion, strong, levelheaded. One of the most important things about him, was that he knew how to take care of himself. Even if he was busting his ass getting work done, he’d still remember to eat, take his meds, do breathing exercises, sleep, cry, express normal human emotions, all that good stuff. Toby was shit at taking care of himself.

That had grown to be a concern for the other two proxies. But while Tim would micro-manage the twitching boy, Brian would mother him. All of it was out of affection, but it was weird.

Brian would always make sure Toby was eating, and sleeping, taking his meds, taking breaks, showering, dealing with his emotions rather than bottling them up or running away from them. He would nurse the ever-loving shit out of the young boy.

Tim on the other hand, he’d point Toby in the right direction, just in the wrong way. It was just in his nature. Tough love. He’d boss the brunet around until they were at each other’s throats, yelling. They’d bicker a lot. All out of love. It got on everyone’s nerves.

The three huddled together, snoring softly. Their aching bodies finally getting decent rest for the first time in weeks. Nothing like a little bit of self-care to get them through the rough patches. Brian originally wanted to watch a movie and do each other’s nails, and play with the other boy’s hair, but they were all so tired. Oh well, they could do that some other time.

Their dynamic was weird, but it worked out wonderfully.


	2. Toby Stop Crying (edgy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> probably my least favourite chapter

The feeling of soft, warm water beating down is comforting. The water flows and drips through his messy hair, down his face, and down his back. His eyes squeezed tightly shut, up against his banged-up knees. Scrapes and bruises blossom across his frail form, bleeding into the delicately pale skin like watercolours. He grasps his legs tightly against his chest. His sobs are harmonized with the spray of the shower head, and the incessant pitter-patter of the rain outside. It patters against the roof like a drum.

He is tired, and sore. His week has only just begun, so he feels no purpose in self-care. Brian’s words ring in his head, how he spoke with such a soft tone.

“Let’s get you some food,”

He had said, guiding his shorter friend to the kitchen.

With food in his knotted stomach, Brian had urged him to shower and head off to bed. The way he softly pushed Toby’s back as he urged him off.

“Go take a shower, I’ll check on you soon,”

He was such a sweetheart. Toby could never understand what he did to deserve such a caring companion.

He took a moment to compose himself, pulling himself off the shower floor. Shampoo and Conditioner made their way into his dripping hair. His legs trembled as he tried to steady his breath.

He was an utter mess.

 

Showering in the dark was a must for Toby. The bathroom lights were too bright, and he didn’t want to see his body. Brian would always worry about that.

“You’ll hurt your eyes!”

“I don’t care,”

“You’ll slip and fall!”

“I can’t feel pain,”

The brunet shook his head at the echoes of past conversations.

 

* * *

 

Drying himself off and pulling himself into a cool, oversized cotton band tee, and baggy sweatpants.

His hair was getting too long.

It was still wet and curled upward at the ends. Tim had described it as a rose bush. Toby was only now starting to agree with that.

He sat on his bed, pulling the large, billowy, cedar coloured comforter around him. His puffy eyes and red tear-stained cheeks were a pretty good indicator of his current mental state.

 

A soft knock at the door generates a croak from the trembly boy. Brian enters, with Tim shuffling behind him. The caramel haired boy’s posture changes as he assimilates Toby’s outward appearance. He scurried over and crawled onto the bed next to the twitching boy. He bear hugged the smaller figure, who sniffled and buried his face in the crook of Brian’s neck.

Tim swallowed hard and cautiously made his way over to the other two.

Brian whispered sweet nothings to the sobbing boy, rubbing circles in his back and reassuring him. Tim sat off to the side, wincing at the poor boy. He hated to see Toby cry.

Eventually they got him to calm down, so he sat curled up in their laps, all three of them wrapped around Toby’s comforter.

“I’m just so.. tired.. a-and overwhelmed. I just want to sleep and never wake up,” the small boy’s voice broke, explaining himself.

Brian ran his hands through Toby’s hair as he listened to the boy ramble on. Tim would always pipe up with his insight and offer reassurance. Tim had always been better with mental health issues. Brian was better with more physical issues, which made sense, saying as he’d previously been a nurse.

The tallest of the three boys played with Toby’s hair as he heeded to the two jabber on about depression and stress, that sort of thing.

Tim was the first to fall asleep. Then Toby.. Then finally Brian. The three were all tangled up, snorting peacefully.


	3. What - freeform (random, plot starts here)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what
> 
> it's no longer valentines day but whatever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bicht idek

“I think your issue is that you never express your emotions, you never communicate,” Tim offered.

“You’re one to talk,” Toby raised an eyebrow as he smiled.

“I’m getting better at it,” Tim rolled his eyes.

“Yea, yea, I get it,”

Brian eyed the two thoughtfully, pondering Tim’s words.

How could they work through this?

 

* * *

 

There’s something about this job that’s just so appealing. Something about the night runs in particular. Frigid night air, the stars, the darkness, the quiet, the lights of the city, stalking people, the burning of his lungs as he ran.

He was drowsy and losing his footing as he dashed through the streets. They were empty, dark, and cold. Only the nauseating orange street lamps to light his way.

That sort of scene always tore at his insides a bit. Remembering ȚȟȄ ȘȗӎᶆỂɍ that he’d love to forget. No matter how important that summer was to how his personality is today, he still doesn’t like to think about it.

Finally, he was done for the night. He collected the information he needed to.. so why was he still here?

He liked roaming the empty streets, enjoying the quiet. Trying to make new memories to replace those.. less pleasant memories. There was something so liberating about walking in the middle of the street in the middle of the night.

He shook himself from his fantasies and started back towards home, opting to take the street lamp root.

Fiddling with the tattered sleeve of his sweater, he made his way out of the concrete palace that was the small California town, branching off into the woods.

The path he walked was well worn, widdling its way through the thicket. Trees bending and stretching towards the sky, as if the arms of the damned reaching out of hell, trying to pull themselves out. Existence broke for a moment and he coughed himself back into reality, readjusting his goggles and clearing his throat. He trotted along, listening to the quiet. This time of year was rather eerie, without bugs to incessantly chirp your ears off, every little noise was either extremely calming or alarming. Every twig that snapped, every rustle of the dead leaves which littered the ground, every shift of rocks, every hoot of an owl, or howl of a coyote, all of it would cause Toby’s heart to jump into his throat. The breeze would either soothe him or scare him. Tonight it soothed him. With the sound of a creek, worming its way through the forest, way off in the background, he was rather calm.

His throat was dry, and his vision was starting to fuzz. He was ready to sleep. Insomnia wasn’t going to bite his ass tonight. He was going to march up to bed and pass out.

That’s not what happened at all, though.

He instead sat on the kitchen counter having a rather deep conversation. The conversation flowed from topic to topic like a river, which was also calming. He and Masky did this a lot. Got swept away talking about God knows what. It was special to him. Like, an important part of their relationship. They talked about deep shit that most of the time didn’t really have anything to do with current affairs. Political stuff, religious stuff, childhood stuff, random dumb memories (a favourite of theirs). This time they were talking about a more current thing. Emotions, mental illness, trauma.

To be more specific, Masky lecturing Toby on how to deal with emotions in different situations. It was collaborative, so “lecture” isn’t really the proper term, but Toby liked to call it a lecture, nevertheless. Psychology was one of Tim’s- *Masky’s* favourite subjects. Having firsthand knowledge on that sort of thing peaked his interest, and thusly he found himself diagnosing random people with different mental illnesses, some of which were lesser known. Toby admired this greatly. Taking a weakness and turning it into a strength (as well as an adorable quirky thing) was an adorably inspiring action. Toby always made sure to praise his dear friend for that.

Praising Masky of course meant that Toby would incessantly compliment him till he got all soft and super !!!! >////> about it. And no, there is no other way to phrase that. !!!! >////> was basically just the two of them being disgustingly gay together. It was adorable, but absolute trash at the same time.

Eventually, the two parted ways, saying their goodnights, and crashing in their respective rooms. Sleep came easily this particular night, which Toby was incredibly grateful for. There was still more work to get done, but getting to unwind and open up to someone the brunet considered to be a close friend felt fresh. Like taking a shower after sinning to Cleanse™.

 

* * *

 

He awoke in a sweat, glimpses of his dream fresh in his memory. Dreams full of terrifying graphics he’d rather not describe. He pulled himself out of bed and into the shower, shedding his sweaty clothes like it were snake skin. The warm water washed away all the sweat and nightmares, leaving him feeling fresh and ready to start the day.

He bounced down the stairs and into the kitchen, preparing himself a frozen waffle. He had an apple with it, so it was probably super healthy.

He found his friends outside, like usual. Masky explained their situation and game plan and they were off.

 

* * *

 

“Tim, it’s late. Why did you drag us out here?” Brian whined, crossing his arms as he followed the shorter boy.

“You guys are going to love it, I promise, just follow me,”

“Why are we at Walmart?” Toby giggled.

“You’ll see, now stop asking questions,” Tim sloppily intertwined his fingers with the other two boys’. He walked them into the nearly empty Walmart and made a straight shot for the seasonal isle. Messy rows of red heart shaped boxes and stupid stuffed bears. Tim grabbed an ungodly amount of chocolate and led them to checkout. The two didn’t even bother opening their mouths. They stood on the cold sidewalk, the light of the store shining through the windows of the automatic sliding doors.

They stared off into the darkness of the parking lot for a moment.

“Timothy Wright what the actual fuck,”

“I got us late-valentines day chocolate,” he offered one of the boxes to Brian, who tried to keep a straight face, before breaking out into a grin and accepting the box.

Tim also handed one to Toby, who eyed the box curiously. He’d never gotten a Valentine before..

The three walked the streets, cold wind biting at their faces.

“We really need a car..” Brian groaned.

“Yea that’d be nice. Too bad we don’t really have any source of income,” he rolled his eyes.

“We could sell random shit online,” Toby suggested.

“Like what?” Tim’s voice laced with intrigue.

“I dunno, we could like, knit scarves and sell them on ebay,” he shrugged.

“That.. that’s actually not a bad idea,” Brian stopped walking. “I mean, I’m not great at knitting, but I can crochet,”

“And I’m kind of okay at knitting,” Toby offered.

“And I’m good at colour theory,” Tim shrugged.

They all looked at each other, figuring out if this was actually a good idea.

They all nodded, snickering, and continuing on their way home.

This is stupid.


	4. Meds R 4 Cool Kidz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> short?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't @ me I'm tired

“I know.. it just- it feels dumb, ack! I dunno,” Toby muttered sourly.

“Yea, that’s how it is, but it’s much better than feeling like shit all the time,”

“Yea, I just never take it for long enough to stop feeling like shit and I get all- ngh! Panicky about it and stop,”

“I used to do that a lot in middle school,” Brian snickers, “So don’t feel too singled out. It’s just a thing, and it takes some effort to get over, but you’ll get into the groove of it eventually. And I’m going to help you!” Determination gleamed in his eyes.

“Why do you put up with me,” Toby sighed, shaking his head and cracking a smile.

“Uh, because we have to,” Brian retorted, the brunet almost missing the sarcasm in his voice behind the truth of his statement.

“And because if we have to, we might as well get along and care for each other,” Tim shrugged, butting into the conversation from across the kitchen.

“Yea, that’s a better way of putting it,” Brian smiled.

“HnnNnNNngg,” Toby’s voice cracked.

“It gets better,” Brian reassured the twitching brunet.

“God I hope so,” he rolls his eyes, tossing the pills in his mouth and drowning them with water. They feel weird going down his throat. A sensation he’d only be able to describe as ‘akin to your description of pain, without the stinging and burning and cellular damage’. Discomfort. He felt discomfort. He tapped the water glass in his hand with his broken finger nails.

After sighing and having a brief ‘silent conversation’ with Brian, he wiped his mouth, strapped on his mouth guard, and followed the other two boys out into the woods.

* * *

Arson was Toby’s favourite breach of US law. It was exhilarating. The heat, the energy of the flames as they licked up walls and devoured all in its path.

He’d have to describe this particular work day as productive and refreshing.

 

* * *

 

He plopped himself on the couch, enjoying not having to stand any longer. He was exhausted, and glad to be in the warmth of the house he called home.

“You smell like a campfire,” Masky ran his hand through Toby’s messy brown hair.

“I set someone’s house on fire,”

“Damn,”

“It w-was cool,”

“I bet,”

Silence fell upon the two. An accompanying feeling of exhaustion filled the room.

“You should get some sleep,”

Toby shrugged, “So should you,”

“Then let’s go do that,” Masky motioned.

“I know I’m not going to f-fall asleep,”

“One of those nights?”

“Yea,” he replied dryly, staring off into space.

“Want to go lay down with me, then?”

A moment of hesitance, “Yea fuck it, why not,” he pulled himself up off the soft couch and followed the other boy. Up the stairs, through the hallways, winding around, finally to his room.

 

“Ya know, when I was little, I thought that God was just playing us like dolls in a doll house, so like, if I went to the kitchen to grab a snack, I’d always imagine God pushing me from one room to the next to do that,”

“That’s weird,”

“Yea,” Toby shrugged, “Religion is weird,”

“It is,”

“Do you believe in God?”

“I.. I /want/ to believe, but no, no I don’t. Do you?”

“I used to. For a while. The chu-rch kind of sucked me into that. One day, though, I realized that none of it really mattered, and that if there was a God, he sure as hell didn’t love all his children the same. Everyone always told me that God works in mysterious wa-ys, and that he does everything for a reason, but like, if I were God,” he paused, violently shuttering, “I’d just fuck with people because I can. Or maybe I’d just leave them to suffer in a doomed world. Doomed timeline. If God is real, he doesn’t care about me,” Toby breathed.

“Huh, the church ladies didn’t like that very much, did they?”

“No, they kept telling me to hold fa- hold faith or some shit,”

“Would you ever go back to church?”

“I- as much as I dislike the whole blind faith thing and the uncaring God thing, yea. There’s just something about it that’s so- that’s so- so comforting. Church feels like home, even though it also kind of feels like a dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty lie,” he repeat ‘dirty’ without really realizing, having felt it necessary to repeat it 5 times. His throat tightened. “Peaceful and calm. I felt safe there. And as shitty as it f-felt to be told to hold faith in something that I didn’t even- didn’t even believe in, it felt good. It was reassuring, for whatever r-eason,”

“That actually makes a lot of sense,”

“..Really?”

“Well- no, but like, I get it. I understand the feeling. I think churches are, like, magic or something. They just give off that chill vibe,”

“Yea, I guess,”

 

* * *

 

“I’m in a one sided relationship with sleep,” Toby’s voice broke the silence which had fallen upon the group. He stared off into space as he continued. “I love sleep but sleep doesn’t love me and it’s pissing me off,”

“Welcome to the insomniac club, it’s like a middle school dance. Uncomfortable and unwanted,” Masky retorted.

They all giggled, silence soon falling back onto the three. A shared tiredness oozed through their presence.


	5. Self Care (Fluff and garbage)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before falling asleep, Toby made sure he planned on pulling the two boys he had become so close to into his bed sooner rather than later.
> 
> He also made sure he scolded himself for making something as innocent as cuddling sound like a sinful innuendo for something he would forever crave, but probably never have the guts to actually act on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love

“We’ve been so busy lately,” Toby mumbled, sprawled out on Brian’s bed tiredly.

“Shit should die down soon, don’t worry,” Tim sighed, flopping onto the bed.

“This is legitimately the first time I’ve sat down in of 48 hours this is outrageous,” Brian spat.

“Same,”

“Same,”

“Wait, dude,” Brian shot up from the bed, sauntering to his closet, returning with a heap of blankets and oversized fleece pajamas. He dropped the large pile on top of the two worthless boys sprawled across his queen-sized bed. “We don’t do self-care enough and I’ve run out of epsom salt and bath bombs, so we can just cocoon ourselves in these,”

“Yes, thank,” Toby gladly plucked oversized fleece pajama pants and an oversized fleece hoodie. The liberating feeling of stripping off dirty clothes and switching them out for fresh (and not to mention soft) clothes. Though he still felt rather dirty, as he hadn’t taken a shower; none the less, this was enjoyable.

The all curled up in the middle of the bed, tucking into the pile of soft blankets.

 

* * *

 

“I forget how nice this is,” Toby says, somewhat surprised.

“Yea, this is nice,” Tim turns to Brian, “Thank you,”

“It worries me how little you two care for yourselves,” he shakes his head.

“Eheh, we get busy,” Tim shrugs.

“By busy he mea- he means work until you drop,” the short boy chirps.

“Exactly,” Brian snorts, running his hand through his short caramel hair.

“I will fight you,” Tim pouts.

“You already have,”

“That’s fucking g-gay,” Toby blurts, fiddling with the hem of his brick-red swim shorts.

“No homo, though,” Brian rolls his eyes.

“That’s what I thought, you fucking homo,”

“God damn you’re mean,” Tim curses.

“I’m tired as fu-ck, my guy,”

“Aren’t we all,” Tim snorts.

A momentary silence falls upon the three boys before Toby blurts “What t-the fuck even is Epsom salt?”

“…Salt that’s good for your skin,,” Brian’s voice stiffened.

“..You don’t know what Epsom salt is, do you?”

“Well I know it makes my skin fucking soft, so I don’t think it matters,” Tim suggests.

“This is the gayest bath I’ve ever had,” Toby pulled himself out of the tub and into a towel, “premarital sex is a sin, y’all,”

“You’re not my dad,” Brian pouts.

“Thankfully,” Toby snorts.

 

* * *

 

“I feel like I’m going to pass out,”

“Maybe you’re dehydrated?” Tim suggests.

“Naw, I’ve had water withi- within the past s- the past six hours,”

“Hm, when was the last time you ate?” Brian crossed his arms across his chest, already knowing the answer.

“Uh,, eheheh,, what d-day is it??”

“Sunday, March 11th,” Brian said in monotone.

“Eheheh, I think I a- I ate on Friday?”

“You’re a mess,” Brian exhales, dismounting the kitchen counter and walking towards the pantry.

“Can I have a granola bar?” Toby asked in a small voice.

“Bitch I’m not getting you a snack, I’m making you some god damn dinner,”

“Thank you,,”

“You’re welcome, hot mess,”

Tim snickered as he sauntered over to Brian.

 

* * *

 

Foot sores.

The second worst part of this life style. (Second only to thing which creates this issue: running).

Sometimes they blister, sometimes they boil. Toby is just thankful he doesn’t have to actually deal with the pain that Tim and Brian constantly whine about.

Disinfect blisters with rubbing alcohol, disinfect bumps and boils with distilled vinegar, Neosporin, band-aids.

This cycle repeated almost every night. Usually he’d dread this sort of thing, but there was something nice about taking care of himself.

 

* * *

 

Sleeping with someone is a scary experience. Especially when you aren’t used to that kind of intimacy. He wasn’t sure how Brian was able to get to sleep with all of Toby’s incessant fidgeting, cracking his knuckles and his neck every-so-often, twitching, violent shudders, and basically everything else about him that was unbearable. Somehow, though, Brian was snuggled up against the short boy, arm lazily placed across Toby’s waist. It was comforting, it was just.. such new territory to the boy. Having been bullied and ostracized by his school mates, and being homeschooled his whole life, he never really got the opportunity to ever “make a move”, or even fall in love with someone, much less hug someone he wasn’t related to.

He hated the way he was over thinking this. It was a sort of out-of-body moment, where he was too caught up in his thoughts to pay attention to the moment. He hated the way he acted like this was a new thing, when in fact, this had been going on for quite some time. He tried to pull himself back into reality using one of the tricks Brian had taught him.

What are 5 things you see?

> Brian, peacefully sleeping; Brian’s queen-sized bed; Brian’s bed covers; an aesthetically pleasing window on the other side of the small room; Brian’s dresser, with clothes peeking out the drawers

What are 4 things you feel?

> Brian’s arm draped around Toby’s frail figure; Brian’s soft bed covers; Brian’s chest softly rising and falling; an oversized shirt that definitely didn’t belong to Toby

What are 3 things you hear?

> The soft pitter-pattering of rain outside; distant footsteps and muffled voices; Brian snuffling softly

What are 2 things you smell?

> Some foresty musk coming from the bed covers, probably Brian’s bodywash; Brian. He could never really put his finger on what Brian smelled like, but it was distinct. Distinct in a good way, a comforting way. He smelled like whatever earthy bodywash he used and what Toby could only assume was aftershave

What is 1 thing you taste?

> Brian

…

Toby had finally brought himself back into the moment, snuggling up against the taller boy, feeling Brian’s arm tighten around him. It was kind of comforting and helped keep Toby from overthinking things.

The feeling of being so physically close to someone was unexplainable. It was the most comforting, satisfying, and most uncomfortable experience ever. Sweaty, awkward humans squishing together for comfort. It weirded him out, though he loved it all the same.

One thing was certain, he liked cuddling in his smaller bed.

Body parts all tangled together, with no choice on how close you wanted to be. They were practically on top of each other in Toby’s full-sized bed.

Before falling asleep, Toby made sure he planned on pulling the two boys he had become so close to into his bed sooner rather than later.

He also made sure he scolded himself for making something as innocent as cuddling sound like a sinful innuendo for something he would forever crave, but probably never have the guts to actually act on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is slow burn
> 
> also you fricks should comment and give me kudos I need constant validation, otherwise I'll probably stop uploading chapters because I lose interest if I don't have people counting on me to update
> 
> k love you fricks  
> chapter tomorrow


	6. Memes (P. 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t under-stand how you being a `grown ass adl- adult` means that you listen to indie bands ra-ather than emo ba-nds,”
> 
> “I JUST REALLY LIKE MUMFORD AND SONS, STOP BULLYING ME,” Tim defends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AKA I wrote this 4 weeks ago what the fuck

“I quote vines too much,” Toby said in a spaced-out-pondering voice.

“You are the king of one-liners in general, subsequently, vines are so up your alley,” Brian shrugs.

“Shit, you just complimented me /and/ made it obvious to how often you think about me,”

“I mean, I never said I hate you,”

“You just told me you hated me an hour ago,”

“Oh yea,” he breathed, “Well- that was Hoodie,”

“Excuses, excuses,”

“Frick you,”

“Frick you too,”

“..”

“..”

“I didn’t mean it I still love you,”

“I didn’t mean it either,”

“Love you, bro,”

“Bro,”

“Bro,”

They both giggled like the little sleep deprived rodents they were.

 

* * *

 

Toby lay sprawled out on his bed, sore and exhausted.

“We should probably actually get a car,”

“Yea, I’m working out the logistics of that,” Tim grumbled.

“Really?” Toby sat up, looking at the dark haired boy.

“Yea, EJ said he’d help out with the cash aspect of it, as long as he gets to use it sometimes,”

“Where the fuck would EJ even go?” Brian inquired.

“Dude, I don’t fuckin know,”

 

* * *

 

“I had another dream about being in a car last night,”

“Oh?”

“Yea,”

“..Was it bad?”

“No, not really. I was.. I was like, laying in the ba-ckseat, it was night, we w-ere at the edge of a town of some kind. Orange street- streetlights and the dashboard feature-thingies all lit up. I think you g-guys were in the fron-t. There was some weird so-ng I don’t know playing softly on the radio,”

“Weird,” Brian remarked.

“Yea, then- then Our Song came on!”

“Next To Me?”

“Yea, the Imagine Dragons one! And we were all- like- like, singing, and you guys sounded uh- really good, like super good, I was in awe,”

“Probably wasn’t us, we’re shit at singing,” Tim joked.

“Bitch, stop lying, you sound so good,” Brian scoffed.

“Yea, yea, whatever you say, angel face,”

“It was definitely you guys,” Toby said confidentially.

“How can you tell?” Tim fiddled with the sleeve of his ripped denim jacket.

“ I felt Safe.. a-and Happy. I only ever really feel that around you two, so I don’t really see how it was anyone else,”

“That’s cute,” Tim smiled.

“You’re cute,” Toby retorted.

“No, no, /Brian/ is cute,”

“Brian /is/ cute,”

“Frick you two,” the caramel haired boy pouted.

“Not right now,”

“I hate you,”

“You love me,”

“I love you,,”

“I love you, too!” Toby exclaimed.

“I love you, too,” Tim cooed, shaking his head, grin cracking onto his face.

 

* * *

 

The night was cool and humid. Not unbearably humid, but just humid enough to trick Toby’s senses into believing it to be much warmer than it actually was. Hr was rather shocked to see his breath under the orange glow of a street light.

The breeze was constant, but not incessant. The was just warm and wet enough for it to feel soft, comforting, even.

He was tired a few hours ago, but that had passed, and now he was full of unnecessary energy.

The three boys walked through the dead streets of some undescriptive Californian town. When the road was crossed with well-worn railroad tracks, they opted to walk along said tracks, abandoning the familiarity of the dilapidated asphalt. Distant streetlights dimly illuminated the rail bed.

Toby balanced on the rail, arms extended out to keep his footing. His black converse hightops tapped against to cold steel. Brian’s worn out olive slip-on shoes clattered the gravel the rail lay upon, walking along the outside of the rail; hands shoved into his jean pockets. Tim’s steel-toed boots clunked against the rail ties, hands occupied fiddling with his sleeves.

The wind softly rustled the empty branches of the trees that lined one side of the rail way, the other being miscellaneous gas stations and other shady stores. The wail of the train whistle broke the quiet, as it pressed forward. The sound of metal wheels on metal rail soon rang through their ears, as they departed from the tracks.

They stood like trees, letting the freight train storm past, bringing about a great breeze, and bellowing a mighty cry as it’s engine roared off. The breeze blew their clothes and hair ravenously. They pulled themselves back onto the tracks.

The darkness felt so isolating, manufacturing the feeling of being stranded, maybe on an island in the middle of nowhere. The quiet shoved itself down Toby’s throat, leaving him without a voice to speak. He felt like he wasn’t even in control of his body, he was too tired. It felt awfully familiar. It took him forever to realize it reminded him of ȚȟȄ ȘȗӎᶆỂɍ , but once he realized that, he felt less and less alive.

He spaced out, lost in the river of his thoughts, but everything ripped itself back into place as Tim squeezed Toby’s hand.

“Let’s go home,” Tim whispered.

He couldn’t argue with that.

 

* * *

 

“Come on, we’re going to hot topic,”

“No the fuck we are not,” Tim says sternly.

“Bitch let’s go, I need your artistic eye,”

“What at hot topic could possibly use my ‘artistic eye’?”

“We’re going to get yarn afterwards,”

“Why do we need to go to hot topic, then??”

“I need bathbombs and jeans,”

“I’m a fucking grown man I don’t need to ever enter a hot topic again,”

“Too bad, Toby’s already outside,” Brian grabbed Tim’s hand and practically dragged him along.

 

* * *

 

“Sometimes I forget that Tim is almost seven y-ears older than me,”

“How old are you??” Brian asked, confused.

“Barely n-nineteen,”

“You were like, fifteen when you first got here, right??”

“Yea,”

“And Tim is twenty-five,”

“Yea,”

“Jesus you’re young,”

“No! You guys are old!”

“Hardly!”

“How old are you??”

“Twenty-three! Almost twenty-four!”

“Ew you’re old,”

“You’ll get to my age and realize it’s not that old,”

“Whatever, grandpa,”

“Fuck you, and come on, Tim is still outside pouting, it’s cold out,”

“You’re so cute,”

“,,Why?”

“You caaaaaaaree about him, i-it’s so cuutee,” Toby cooes.

“Frick you, I’ve got everything I need, I’m paying,”

* * *

“Toby, what did you steal?” Brian peers at the twitchy boy curiously.

“These My Chemical Romance bracelets I go- there’s 3, o-one for each of us!” He smiles, holding up three black wrist bands, each with a different design.

“God dammit I’m a grown ass adult I don’t want your MCR tr- I WANT THIS ONE,” Tim snatches one of them out of the shorter boy’s hand.

“Brutal,”

“I don’t under-stand how you being a `grown ass adl- adult` means that you listen to indie bands ra-ather than emo ba-nds,”

“I JUST REALLY LIKE MUMFORD AND SONS, STOP BULLYING ME,” Tim defends.

 

* * *

 

“This one doesn’t work with the one Toby picked at all, totally different hues, and they don’t compliment each other very well, I’d suggest this green one, or this blue one,” Tim points.

“I guess this one? I think that looks nice,”

“OooOOoOoo I know w-what I’m doing for this one!” Toby chimes giddily.

 

* * *

 

“I haven’t seen the world- fu-uck I haven’t even seen most of am- most of America,”

“When I got a car I was gone, I went all over America,”

“I was too scared to leave the country, so I explored a good bit too,” Brian shrugs.

“Well, Toby, once we get our hands on a decent car, we’ll show you the sights,” Tim smiles.

“Don’t we have like- a- a job?”

“Oh there’s plenty to do out of state,”

 

* * *

 

“My hands are so- ack- so sore from knitting so much,” The sound of him cracking is neck sent a shiver down Brian’s spine.

“You’re making hella profit,” the peanut haired boy admits.

“Yea I guess, how’s your cro- crochet thing going??”

“Not great? I’m a lot worse than I remember,”

“Eh, it’s fi-ne,”

 

* * *

 

“How the fuck do you make so much money?”

“Bitch do you know how much kidneys sell for? Up to $2000 legally. Black market it’s even more,” EJ shrugs.

“Mother fuck,” Brian shakes his head.

* * *

“We’ve been saving up money for like a week and we’re already half way there what the shit,”

“You’re gonna have to th-ank EJ for that, I’m only making li-ke like, $100 bucks a day,” Toby shrugs as he knits furiously.

“So we’re getting, like a forester or an outback, right?”

“Yea, something like that would probably be good,”

“Used?”

“Yea,”

“Right,”

“I have no clue what any of that means,” Toby blurts.

“Oh, you unknowledgeable child, you have so much to learn,”

“No thanks, satan,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyyyyyyyy y'all should comment I'm an actual person and I'd love attention
> 
> IF YOU'RE SHY I HAVE THE SHIT FOR YOU  
> ASK ME SHIT ANONYMOUSLY ON MY CURIOUS CAT https://curiouscat.me/RubyCanSeeYou


	7. This is a gay one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Uuughh, y-“ he twitched, “Yea, yea, early bird gets the worm or whatever,”
> 
> “The early bird’s gonna get the `whatever` with that attitude,”
> 
> “Yes, coach,” Toby joked monotonously, pulling himself out of bed after the darker haired boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~2500 words?  
> Mother fuck

“Dude,”

“What?” Brian looked up from what he was doing, which had been making origami stars.

“I’ve been here for ro- like, roughly four years,”

“Damn,”

“Not that I was like, mentally-” he cracked his knuckles, “-here, but like, physically,”

“Yea, that first year and a half wasn’t really a fun time,” Brian said softly. “I don’t think it was for any of us,” he admit, thinking back to those days.

“All I really remember is waking up screaming, wanting to gouge my eyes out, a lot of talking, and walking, and breathing exercises,”

Brian laughed, “Fucking breathing exercises. You were so stubborn,”

“Yea, I was fucking ti- tired of stupid breathing exercises,”

“It helped, though,”

“Yea, and that’s why I’m still mad about that,” Toby giggled.

“Any chance you still do the 4-2-4-2 one to get to sleep?”

“Every night,” Toby groaned, “It’s the only thing that can get me to stop twitching for long enough to fall asleep,”

“See? They worked~” He chimed.

“But they’re still dumb,”

“Mmmhmmm,”

“What do you remember from back then?”

“You and Tim being stubborn little shits. I felt like I was babysitting you two constantly,”

Tim rolled over to join the conversation from the other side of the bed. “Toby would always get on my nerves, you can’t blame me,”

“But I do! I was so tired at the end of every day. I went to fuckin college to be a god damn therapist, and it pays damn good, and here I was, not getting a penny for all my hard work,”

“You got food,” Tim shrugged.

“And a house to live in,” Toby snickered.

“I didn’t want food, I wanted m o n e y,”

They all laughed.

“You were finally like, All There a month or two after you turned seventeen, right?” Tim inquired, trying to remember the order in which things had happened.

“Yea, basically. We finally found the perfect balance of meds, a- and then all the other stuff really started to help,” Toby smiled. “That was a shit part of life, I’m so happy we’re out of that rut,”

“Same here, I was getting sick of you two bickering constantly,” Brian said resentfully.

Tim laughed in a flustered manner, “Yea, it took me a while to warm up,”

“You’re like,, salty water,” Toby giggled

“What..?” 

“You take a little longer to warm up,” Toby grinned.

“Okay, that was clever,”

“Damn,” Brian laughed, “That was good,”

“But now you’re all nice and cozy, and mo-st of the salt has evaporated, so you’re- nice to be around,” Toby giggled, curling up next to Tim.

Tim smiled, “Cute,” he ran his hand through the shorter boy’s wavy brown hair, receiving a purr and a murmur.

“You guys are too cute, this should be illegal,” Brian shook his head.

“Then stop the origami and get your cute butt over here,” Toby mumbled.

Brian muttered, putting down his paper star and crawling over to the other boys. He curled up Next to Toby, looking up to Tim and smiling. Brian wrapped his arm around Toby’s waist and listened to him purr.

“When did you guys fall in love with me?” Toby asked in a small voice, a little afraid to ask. He wasn’t even sure if `fall in love` was the most fitting term, but it was the only one he could come up with.

“Uhm, oh god, eheh, I think it was like,, after you kissed Tim? Like Tim and I had already been close, so when you kissed him I was like, well guess I’m going to have to kiss you. But it wasn’t like, against my will or anything, I didn’t really mind. You were too cute not to love,” Brian murmured, pressing his face into the pillow.

Toby looked to Tim, cuing for him to spill.

“I don’t really remember exactly when this was, but you had gone from being really not okay to like really okay.. basically overnight. You went from being manic and sad to like.. this.. really funny.. happy kid. You pulled me outside to show me.. I think it was a bird..? I don’t really remember, but you were really passionate about showing me. You pulled off your mouth guard and your goggles and just.. gave me the biggest, most gleeful smile ever.. and it was just like.. wow.. I just got a glimpse of heaven,” he beamed, a little embarrassed at how stupid it sounded.

Toby giggled, “I think I remember that,” he looked back and forth between the two boys. “How did you two fall in love?”

“Uuugghhh,” Tim rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “I had a shitty childhood, I’ll explain it some other time, so like, college was really amazing. That’s where I met Brian, my first friend. I dunno, it was just like.. that weird scenario where I just.. adored him, and we were so close that there was no intimacy limit. Like,, ugh this is hard to explain, like if he had told me to kiss him, I would’ve, no questions, no hesitation. Eventually life got in the way and we got caught up in shit I’ll also explain some other time. Long story short, I pushed him off a ledge and he fell. Hard. I.. I mean I didn’t know it was him until after,, um. I went about doing other shit, but eventually ended up here. You know who the fuck was sitting on the couch watching spongebob? God damn mother fucking Brian. I felt shitty about fucking him up like that, even if there was only some bruises and a few fractured bones. I helped take care of him and we picked up right where we left off, but like.. the thought of being friends stopped being acceptable. I kissed him, he kissed back,” He bit his finger, trying to hold back a flustered smile.

Toby beamed at the flustered boy, turning to see Brian smiling, looking the other direction, failing at hiding the tint on his cheeks and ears. “Aaaaand what about you, Bri?”

“HnNnGgg, after we picked back up here, somewhere along the way. His smile was no longer `oh sweet, he’s happy`, it would make my stomach do backflips, he was intoxicating. I dunno, I just, never thought he’d really like me back, so I never said anything..” he chewed at his lip, “I cried when he kissed me and he basically had a panic attack about it,” he giggled nervously.

“Aaaaghhhhhh,” Tim put his hands over his face, “I fuckin remember that,” he mumbled.

“That’s fucking adorable,” Toby snickered.

“Alright, my turn, how did you fall in love with us?” Tim smirked, turning back onto his side to face the other two boys.

“Umm, it’s kind of complicated,” he pondered, cracking his knuckles, “After I was like,, All There,, I think it was,,, like,” he cleared his throat, “I had previously been so Not There tha-t I never really paid that much attention to anything, especially not you guys, so like, the first time that I was All There and saw Brian’s cute face for the first time I was ins- instantly in love,” he smiled, pausing to crack his neck, “I think I kind of started falling in love with you a we-ek earlier. But with you it was s-slow burn, rather than instantaneous. I guess I just noticed all these cute little things that made me so happy, and I just,, felt,, loved,, by someone other than my relatives. Someone other than my f- relatives, two people, even! Cared about me! Me!! A- and- and I just kept growing more and more fond of you and I just,,, kissed you on impulse,” he shrugged, grinning.

“Okay, you guys say shit about my `cute face` so fucking often, am I really *that* cute??”

“Yes,” Toby and Tim say in unison, laughing.

“I will fight you guys,”

“Grr,” Toby joked.

“Well, I guess.. uh, I love you guys,” Tim affirms quietly.

“Aw, I love you guys,” Brian smiled.

“I love you two,, so much,” Toby gushes, fidgeting his hands on his stomach.

“This is so fucking gay, I might die,” Brian jokes.

“Please do not,”

“No promises,” He winks at Tim.

 

* * *

 

The feeling of vulnerability and the unbearability of the low temperature of the room was not fun. Toby was stuck in a state where he was just conscious enough to sort of understand where he was, but he was still very much asleep. So, he lay there, cold, in his bed, in the dark, alone. Usually being alone didn’t bother him that much, but right now it was really eating at him.

At some point, the door opened and shut softly, though it never even processed in Toby’s mind. Suddenly, his back was no longer cold and out in the open. An arm snaked around his torso and he was instantly pulled back into a deep sleep.

Tim nuzzled into Toby’s soft messy hair, trying desperately to steady his breathing. He clenched the smaller boy tightly, almost afraid to soften his grip. This wasn’t a good night for him. He was worn out and tired of being tired. To his knowledge, Brian was still out collecting information on a subject, or maybe running for his life. 50/50 chance on either of those scenarios.

Drowsiness stirred within his being until he finally dozed off.

* * *

Toby had no recollection of last night, or nothing to make any sense of it. Just the feeling of sudden warmth on his back. As he awoke, that same familiar warmth snuggled against his own form. He smiled softly, enjoying the feeling of safety and company.

The sheets were tangled, and a certain someone clinged onto the old tattered tee shirt Toby wore. He listened to the other presence snore softly. Those snores turned into mumbling and whine, figure stirring awake.

“Good morning~” Toby cooed, is voice coarse and still a bit sleepy.

“Morning,” Tim mumbled, still waking up. After sufficiently awakening and becoming aware of his surroundings, Tim rolled over onto his back.

“How’d you sleep?”

His voice was raspy and he still slurred a bit on his words “Good after I ended up in here, how about you?”

“Good after you ended up in here,” Toby echoed, rolling over to face the adorable half asleep boy in his bed. “You’ve been crying,” he noted.

“Bad dream,”

“Wanna t-talk about it?”

“Not really,”

“Just let me know if you cha-ange your mind,” Toby said softly, making sure to use the right fluctuations in his voice so he sounded as sincere as he felt.

Tim rubbed his puffy eyes before groaning, sitting up, “Let’s go, might as well get started as soon as possible,”

“Uuughh, y-“ he twitched, “Yea, yea, early bird gets the worm or whatever,”

“The early bird’s gonna get the `whatever` with that attitude,”

“Yes, coach,” Toby joked monotonously, pulling himself out of bed after the darker haired boy.

 

* * *

 

The three boys were (unsurprisingly) sprawled out on Brian’s bed, twiddling their thumbs and making chatter. This was a common theme in their life style, when things weren’t constantly busy. Luckily things had finally died down, and they were god damn thankful.

Toby lay towards the end of the bed, knitting a lovely scarf with light green and pale yellow. Brian lay very close to the edge, fiddling with a swiss army knife that certainly wasn’t his. Tim sat cross legged, typing away at a laptop he had stolen a while back.

Think clean linen, Brian™, rich black coffee, and the intoxicating scent of nicotine. That was a lot of smells all at once, which was a little disconcerting. There was an interesting atmosphere that Toby had difficulty trying to understand what it was. Like a cozy home, but without the cozy home. That made no sense, which was disappointing. Maybe he’d have to do some poetry or something, help him get better at describing things. Not that a poetry class would directly correlate with being great at describing things but- oh whatever this thought is going nowhere..

The room was dimly lit, saying as it was around 11pm. The soft marigold glow of the bedside lamp clashed with the blue light emitting from Tim’s laptop, which was why Toby faced the opposite direction. It just.. made him uncomfortable.. seeing the two hues of light clash so horribly..

Brian had soon stopped fiddling with the knife and taken up admiring the inattentive boy typing away, blue light illuminating his facial features. He had his dumb nerd glasses on and his hair neatly brushed. God damn Brian loved this man more than life itself. This stupidly dorky and adorable frick drove Brian crazy. It was sort of ironic, seeing as he’s the only one who has been in other `relationships` and he seems to be the most `affected` per se by said `relationship`. To put it in simpler terms, Brian was usually the one who got the most flustered over their affiliation. He acted like it was still the first week of being a couple or something, like the `honeymoon state` where they’re infatuated with each other.

That was a dumb way of explaining it but that’s how it was.

He just.. got so overwhelmed by this. Or he at least got overwhelmed easier than the other two. He had two- count it- TWO- people in his life that love him very much, and he was the only one who’d ever been in such a relationship before. He felt so flattered to be the first romantic interest in their lives.

Brian scooted a bit closer to the dark haired boy and spoke softly, “What’re you doing?”

No response.

“Tim,”

Nothing.

“Tim~,”

He hadn’t even noticed the other boy.

“Timothy!”

“What?” he glanced up from the screen to see a very dazed Brian smiling at him.

“What’cha doing on there?” he looked to the laptop curiously.

“Oh, just kind of surfing the web. Little bit of research, little bit of Wikipedia binging, reddit surfing, whatever,”

“Really? Cause you sure have been typing a lot,”

Tim looked back to the screen and continued typing, “Yea, okay, maybe I’m writing,,,”

“Aw can I see?”

“No! Er- not yet at least, I’m nowhere near done,”

“What are you writing?”

“I mean, technically they’re poems, but I don’t like calling them that,”

“That’s cute,”

“Nngh,”

Brian leaned in and planted a kiss onto Tim’s cheek, “Love you,” he spoke quietly.

The dark haired boy smiled and whispered back, “,,Love you, too,,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is shit oops


	8. Toby's not so great adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He explained everything he could remember and bawled for a good hour before passing out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's bad at writing action???   
> M E

Sometimes this lifestyle was the most rewarding dream come true, and other times it was the most worthless nightmare.

 

He ran blindly through the dark, his life might just depend on this. He has no idea where he is, and he’s honestly a bit scared. All he knows is: his mission went south, he blacked out, woke up in a warehouse, got the shit kicked out of him, and he’s currently running from at least 3 people and 2 dogs.

His mind wants to feed his imagination worst case scenarios, but he was too focused on running blindly, dodging whatever was in his way.

Though not completely sure, he thinks he might have run in the wrong direction, meaning he ran away from society, rather than closer, so he could guess he was running through some sort of thicket of brush.

He panted wildly, stumbling and barely catching himself, everything was so uncoordinated.

He was a rabbit, being chased by a dog.

As he weighed his options, he decided turning back wouldn’t be a good idea, and he’d have to hope that he’d be lucky enough to stumble upon a town. His chest burned as he stumbled… until he tripped.

Alternating between rolling and sliding down a hill. He stopped rolling, laying in a shallow ditch next to.. a road? He lay there catching his breath, if only for a moment before pulling himself up and scanning his surroundings.

Road. Paved road. Paint lines. Well maintained. Good. This was good.

He cursed himself for not knowing which direction was which, opting to go farther away from the general area he’d run from.

He went left.

He crossed the road, walking along the thicket of brush on the other side of the road. That’d make it easier to lose those guys, though dogs are good at sniffing him out. That’s where society came into play. Dogs can’t chase you down and murder you in a Walmart, thankfully.

He stopped briefly to catch his breath and check to make sure $40 was still in his shoe, which it was. Sweet.

He walked at a moderate pace, making sure to climb up the hill that cradled the road a bit, help confuse the dogs on his trail.

As the sun began to rise, he was able to finally make out rough directions as to where he was and where he was going. Every once in a while, he’d pick up his pace, as he just wanted to get this over with.

Cars passed occasionally, meaning he wasn’t wandering off to nowhere. After the sun had fully illuminated the world around him, he realized he probably looked rather silly and pulled off his goggles and mouth guard. His clothes were ripped and covered in foliage and blood. He could tell he was bruised and scraped up pretty good. He hadn’t even realized he had a nasty looking bruise blooming on his right cheek bone until he rubbed his eye, feeling the puffiness of the inflamed injury as it lay just under his eye.

It was probably around 9am when he finally made it to some sort of town. Once he spotted a pay phone, he walked into the gas station adjacent to it. Bought a bottle of water and some miscellaneous snacks, got an odd look when he asked the cashier what town he was in, and finally made his way over to the pay phone.

The phone rang 4 times. Every time it felt like Toby was being clawed from the inside, he just wanted this to be over.

“This is Tim,”

“Hey!”

“Oh my god! Dude, where are you? You had us so worried,”

“Middleton,”

“Never heard of it,”

“Me neither. Now what the fuck should I do??”

“Uh give me a second, let me look at bus station schedules,” the sound of Tim opening his laptop, and the tapping of the keyboard helped the lump in Toby’s throat subside.

“There should be a bus coming around there every 2 hours, next one is in around forty-five minutes, we’ll meet you at the bus station back here,”

“Okay,,”

“Are you okay?”

“Not really,”

“Do you know what the fuck happened? You never came back,”

“I don’t really remember anything other than waking up in a warehouse and running for my life, being chased down,”

“Jesus Christ. We’ll talk more about that when you get back here, but for now, just remember to breath, everything’s going to be alright,”

“Mhm, thank you,”

“Be careful,”

“See you soon,”

* * *

The bus ride was nauseating and exhausting, the twitchy boy wanted so desperately to fall asleep, but he wanted more than anything to go home, collapse into Brian and Tim’s arms and sob uncontrollably in the safety of his bedroom.

Even though the ride was only 30 minutes, it felt like hours, and he almost started crying when Brian and Tim off in the distance as the bus slowed.

Bear hugs and words of relief and worry were exchanged as they hiked back home.

They washed the emotionally exhausted boy off and cleaned his wounds, no matter how small they were. All wrapped up in bandages and fresh clothes, Toby crawled into his bed, and the other two followed suit.

He explained everything he could remember and bawled for a good hour before passing out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the worst chapter I've written thus far


	9. Another pointless gay one with like 2% plot and 98% fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey hey this is p gay  
> also rewatching Marble Hornets was a mistake  
> P a i n

“I dunno, TV just has a bunch of dumb stuff,” Hoodie shrugged.

“Eh, I learned most o- of what I know about peo- about people from TV… and `teen` novels,” Toby cringed at the thought.

Masky snorted, “That’s sad,”

“Better than stumbling around like an idiot, reading from a `social psychology` book,” Hoodie joked.

“Uuugghhh, that was an embarrassing time to be alive,” Masky groaned.

“Indeed,”

“Ew, you guys were gro-ss back then,” Toby crossed his arms as they walked along the narrow trail, scanning the surrounding area cautiously.

“Better than you,” Hoodie sneered.

“Frick y-you, my gu-“ he was cut short by Masky holding out his arms to stop the two from walking. He pointed off into the distance. Exchanging a few hand gestures, they spread out, combing through the underbrush, planning to surround the figure.

Surrounding him was a bust when the subject broke out into a sprint in the other direction. Toby darted after it, Hoodie trailing close behind. Masky jogged behind, watching the scene unfold. Toby tackled the subject, hoodie jumping in seconds later to help restrain it. Masky didn’t waste time, knocking the subject out immediately, and he and Toby dragged it back, while Hoodie scanned the area to make sure there wasn’t anyone else, eventually catching back up with the other two.

It was crazy how this had become a routine. Anyone who strays too far from the beaten path ends up interrogated and killed, if not trialed and/or tortured, depending on information/skill said subject possesses.

 

* * *

 

Walking home alone in the dark after chasing a subject was a feeling Toby never tired of. It was a feeling of independence, adrenaline, and true renegade nature.

Something about a successful mission mixed with the wonderful sounds of the forest, mixed with the winding trails, mixed with the warmth of home, mixed with the kisses with underlying lust left unfulfilled. The groping of his thigh, the kisses trailing down towards his neck, but said action never being completed. It left a tension thick as fog to choke him out. His mentality constantly shifting between “Fuck me hard against a wall” and “I’m terrified of sex and I’m doubtful I’d even enjoy it saying as I’d be to busy being nervous and awkward about it”. It was disgruntling to say the least.

He wished he could just make up his mind, rather than constantly shifting ideologies.

His arms wrapped around the back of Brian’s neck, Brian’s hands in Toby’s hair. Sloppy kisses exchanged in the warm dark of Brian’s room. Hands trailed out of brunet hair and to the hem of his shirt, fiddling with it momentarily before pulling it off, throwing it to the end of the bed. His hands trailed up Toby’s muscular back, returning to his hair. Kisses continued for a while before Toby buried his face into Brian’s collarbone, mumbling something about being tired, to which Brian nursed him like a child, pulling the covers over the shirtless boy and himself.

Why did this sort of thing make Toby feel so hot yet so gross?

This is unfair.

 

* * *

 

Toby had gotten rather good at climbing over the years. Climbing up windowsills and up to the roof, climbing up trees to view subjects, that sort of thing. He had also gotten suspiciously good at breaking and entering. That had proven to be helpful, as viewing a subject from a closer perspective, having access to their belongings, medical records, legal documents, or whatever else deemed necessary was easier to reach from inside.

Watching subjects sleep was fun. They were so pretty when they stirred softly, blissfully unaware of the hell that was creeping ever so close.

He quietly snooped around through the subject’s documents, finding the information he needed before slowly creeping out the window he came in through, closing it behind him. He dropped down and sprinted back to the safety of the forest.

 

* * *

 

Sore, tired, and a bit loopy, Brian pulled Tim and Toby into his bed.

It had been a long week, to say the least. Finally, it was over, and they could relax. Brian had planned for an evening of self-care bubble baths and Netflix, but they got ice cream and flopped into his bed instead.

He wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Too tired to shower, too tired to change their clothes, pathetic little buggers.

They’d been around each other long enough that they had a sleeping dynamic none of them ever really put together, it was just what felt the most comfortable. Toby remembers how he used to feel like he was intruding Tim and Brian’s `relationship`, though the two desperately pleaded for the small boy to stop thinking like that, as they loved him dearly.

Brian shed his burnt-sienna hoodie, tossing it across the room, and curling up under the comforter. Toby nuzzled his face into the crook of Brian’s neck as the three curled up into their usual position.

Tim watched the hoodie land on the ground. That hoodie made him dizzy every time he thought about it. All the good memories from college mixed with all the bad memories from the Marble Hornets Catastrophe like water colour. He rubbed his eyes and rolled over, wrapping his arm around Toby’s torso, snuggling into his usual position.

This was nice.

 

* * *

 

“Wait I didn’t really realize that we’d like,,, actually get a car,, that we drive in,,,” Toby stuttered out.

“Well that’s kind of what `let’s go buy a car` means, honey,” Tim said softly as he laced up his combat boots.

“Don’t worry, nothing bad will happen,” Brian soothed, holding Toby’s hand tightly, “We won’t let anything bad happen,”

“HnNNnggGn,, I just,, worry,,”

“You have every right to worry, sweetheart, but don’t let that overwhelm you too much. Plus, what are the odds of you getting into another car crash? Pretty slim,”

“I mean,, I guess? HhhNnnG,” he chew at his sleeve nervously.

“Well, we’re just looking, we’re not buying today,” Tim assured the twitchy boy, “Just want to get a better sense of how much money we need and just how this whole process is going to work out. It’s probably not going to be at least a month till we even think about actually putting in an offer,”

“I hardly unders- understand what any of that meant but I guess I- uh- hng- get it?”

“Well, to explain it a bit better, they judge you a lot on your credit, job stability, etcetera. Not nearly as much as with a loan, but they still check that shit out, because they make you pay more the worse your credit is, and the best insurance company wants you to have a job to use their car insurance program and blah blah blah,” Tim sighs, “Brian wants to work at a montessori school, since that looks pretty good on your record, and he’s got the best record just in general,”

“So we might all have to get jobs purely so we look like credible people?” Toby raised an eyebrow.

“Uh, we probably won’t have to, but it’s possible,”

“Ew,”

“Eh, Walmart has a good late shift program, you might like it, actually,”

“Anyhow, you guys ready?” Brian changed the subject.

“Yea, let’s get this over with,” Tim sighed.

 

* * *

 

“You holdin’ up alright?” Brian turned to a nervous Toby.

“Yea, cars are just- ugh- weird, it’s weird,”

“You wanna get ice cream afterwards?” he squeezes the smaller boy’s hand.

He nods, “Y-ea,”

“Ice cream it is,”

 

* * *

 

_“For every voice in my head screa- screaming about w-wanting to get better, ther- ack- there’s a much louder one saying that I should live- uh, live the rest of my life like this,”_

_“That’s surprisingly common, especially saying you’ve been leaning on this.. `lifestyle` of sorts as a coping mechanism. But, you do want to get better, right?”_

_“Desperately,”_

_“That’s good! See, you’re making progress! You might struggle with that voice telling you that being happy and healthy and mentally sound is bad might be there your whole life, but you can find ways to counter its argument, find better coping mechanisms than relapsing, and other useful tools to help combat that nasty voice. You can do this, and I’m going to help you. Just remember you’re not alone, Toby, and you can fight this,”_

 

Toby smiled at the memory. He was surprised he remembered that so well, but glad he did. He leaned into Brian as they walked, hands shoved into his pockets. The sun had begun to set behind the coat of clouds that had hid the sun all day. The clouds had been a light gray all day, but the clouds that came in from the west were a much darker grey, and as they crawled closer a light wind started to get more violent.

The rain set in a short while after they flocked to the safety of Brian’s bedroom. Tim tapped away at his laptop as Brian and Toby mumbled to each other, curled up under the comforter. The rain’s soft pitter-pattering turned steadier and more constant, giving the room a tired ambiance.

“You need to stop biting at your lip,” Brian whispered, touching Toby’s chapped lips, skin looking dry and sore, torn up and bloodied.

“I’m tryin’ babe,” he smiled softly, a dazed look in his eyes.

“You ready to sleep?”

“Mnhm,”

“Let’s do that,”

 

* * *

 

~~_**[Read A/N]** _ ~~

Dark cerulean boxer briefs wrap around his derrière in a shapely manor, muscles poke out of his thin thighs. His legs looked as if they’d been sculpted by the gods in the most magnificent of marble, something of fine art, to be looked at but never touched. Just by looking at his body, you could tell he did a lot of physical activity, albeit on purpose or not. Muscles, bruises, scratches. His knees were scraped, bruises on his shins and on his thighs (though those were mostly inflicted unintentionally by Tim and Brian on many occasions, these particularly by Tim). Scratches here and there, all the way up his body, small scrape on his left hip, left arm and elbow completely scraped up. Scars all over his right arm from the car accident oh so long ago which lingers all along his body, mostly pertaining to his right side, small scratches on his jaw, near his collar bone, etc.

Tim watched the small boy’s chest rise and fall softly as he slept, sheets tangled against his body. Tim’s callused hands hesitantly ran down the frail boy’s body, feeling the texture of his skin as his draped over his bones and muscles, hair that trailed down under the elastic of his underwear, sporadic hair on his legs. Small nose with soft shapes, chapped lips, the light stubble along his face. He didn’t shave last night like he usually does.

Messy walnut hair, borderline curly. It was soft, and smelled nice, something Tim couldn’t quite put his finger on, but he knew it was one of the more gender-neutral scents, like hibiscus or coconut. Whatever it was, it smelled nice. Calming.

The boy hardly stirred as Tim pulled himself out of bed, preparing himself for the day. Thusly, Toby was left asleep in Brian’s bed. Alone.

Not a wise decision, but the charcoal haired boy didn’t have much of a choice. He had work to do and so did Toby.

 

* * *

 

Talking about nothing and everything at 2am was the highlight of Toby’s life. Talking about politics, childhood memories, movies, emotions, whatever their thoughts provoked. Sitting on the kitchen counter talking about stupid things that make them weak in the knees from childhood memories.

Finally, EJ ushered them off to bed, in which they gladly waddled off to bed. Toby argued with Tim on where they slept, Toby eventually winning. He knew Tim needed to sleep next to Brian. He’d had such a lousy day..

He ran his hand through Tim’s smooth hair. He listened to Brian whispering sweet nothings to the boy. He rubbed the boy’s back, offering him all the comfort he could give. He kissed the back of Tim’s neck before curling up against him and falling asleep.

 

* * *

 

“You’ve been pretty out of it today, you alright?” Hoodie asked.

“Hn, yea, just- just tired,” Toby ran his hand through his hair.

“How about self-care night? Sound good?”

“Yea, I could use a good evening of chick flicks and scented candles,” Toby snorted.

“Welp, you got that to look forward to, let’s get going, stuff to do,” Masky ushered the two off.

* * *

Toby knelt, hiding in the brush, watching a child play with his mother. The kid seemed so happy, blissfully ignorant as to the pain and horror of the world. His mother looked tired, her dirty blonde hair thin and brittle. Her smile was weary but genuine as she chased her son around. The endless giggles of the child made Toby smile. The boy had auburn hair, but from what Toby could tell, they had the same eyes. She scooped him up and swung him around, walking back towards the parking lot.

Kids were conflicting to Toby. They were adorable little bundles of sunshine, but they were also little menaces. Little delicate menaces. He didn’t trust himself around them. Too many impulses to hurt them, he didn’t want to take that risk.

Maybe one day he’d have kids. Unlikely, but maybe.

He traversed back into the depths of the forest as the sun set behind the clouds. As it got darker it got colder. About half way back, he bumped into Hoodie, and they walked along the narrow path in silence.

“Is, uh, Is Tim okay? He had a rough day yesterday..”

“Yea, just, a little shaken and a bit frustrated. He’s overworked,”

“Figured,”

“He’ll be alright, though. I think some good Netflix movies, scented candles, and lavender-chamomile lotion will do him some good. Do us all some good,”

“You’re a god at self-care,”

“Yea, I got the hang of it around ninth-grade. Helps get you through all the shit,”

“Certainly,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N]: hhhh HOW'ST THE FUNK DO I SAY HE GOT A NICE BUTT IN A POETIC WAY THIS IS DIFFICULT  
> AJKDSFNDKJFANFODSAJKDFSN


	10. Bi-polar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do you mean a chapter is supposed to follow a pattern??  
> let's just throw all the styles in!
> 
> hhhhhhhhhhhhh I don't have an explanation for that beginning bit ehehehehhhhhh  
> I just write whatever feels right, and at that given moment, it was the closest thing to a sexual encounter as I'm comfortable writing B)))

Steam rose off everything outside as the sun warmed it up. Everything was covered in dew. It was calm. Birds whom had just returned for spring fluttered around, picking at grass and worms and singing their happy little songs. The outside was a polar opposite of Toby’s room. Tugs at clothes and hair, rough kisses lingered all over their skin. Grunts and bites and scratches. It was messy and sweaty but fully clothed. This was as rough and sexual as it would get. That’s what the boy was comfortable with, and Tim could respect that.

The room was dark and cold, so the body heat was enjoyable. Bites on each other’s necks, breaths and moans hitching in their throats.

This was gross.

And hot.

But mostly gross.

 

* * *

 

 

“Agh I dunno, college was weird,” Tim shrugged.

“You had fun, though,” Brian chirped.

“Yea, remember those comedy sketch things we did sometimes?”

“I still have some of them,”

“No way,”

“Yea way,”

“You’ll have to show us sometime,”

“I plan to,”

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you remember?” a soft female voice asked.

“W-wha-?” Toby stuttered quietly.

“Don’t be afraid, sweetheart _it was just a bad dream,” his mother consoled the small sobbing boy, crying into her night shirt, grasping it tightly._

_The boy sobbed and mumbled unintelligibly. His body trembled as he hiccupped. His mother’s hands ran through his hair softly while she shushed him._

_“Toby,” she sing-songed, “Toby, look at me sweetheart,” her voice became more assertive, though remaining soft and calm. The small boy hesitantly pulled his face out of her shirt, looking up at his mother. Hot tears ran down his cheeks as his lip quivered. She thumbed the tears off his cheeks and cupped his face in her hands. “Everything’s going to be alright, momma’s here, you don’t need to cry anymore, sweetheart, I won’t let anything hurt you,” she reassured the twitching boy. He nodded and hugged her for a good minute before she tucked him in, laying down next to him. After he fell back to sleep, she quietly escaped back to her own room, leaving the door cracked and the hallway light on._

He couldn’t have been older than 6 in that flashback sequence. He remembered how tender and loving his mother used to be. As time had passed and life had become increasingly difficult, her voice strained, and she always sounded so tired. It was a bittersweet moment, one he remembered so vividly. He swallowed the lump in his throat and shook his head.

_“Yea, well, they’re just jerks. I don’t think you’re weird,” she tucks her long-bobbed blonde hair behind her ear._

_“R-really? B-ut I’m so..-“ he was cut off._

_“You’re not weird. Don’t let anyone make you feel like that,”_

_“I- thank you. I reAlly needed to hear that,” he twitches on the `really`._

_“Mnhm, do you want to go to my house? We can play and my mom can make lunch,”_

_“I should,, go home, my mom will w-worry,”_

_“We can call her when we get to my house,”_

_“Mnm, sure,” They skipped over to her house._

_“Oh, there you are, Mary-Ann! Oh, and Toby too, do you need me to call your mom?” Her voice raises in a sympathetic motherly tone._

_“Could we have him over for a playdate?” Mary-Ann whines._

_“Let me ask his mom,” she says as she dials the boy’s mother._

_Mary-Ann wanders off into the living room and Toby follows suit. She sits crisscross and fiddles with the toys scattered across the floor, Toby watches the pretty girl fiddle with her toys, remaining on his feet incase he had to leave._

_Mary-Ann’s mother peeks into the living room, “Your mom said you can stay for a little while, we’ll walk you home around three, okay?”_

_“Mnmokay,” Toby mumbles, sitting on the floor next to the blonde._

_“Turkey sandwiches or PB &J?”_

_“PB &J,” the two say in unison, giggling._

_The two play with toys and munch on sandwiches and crackers until Mary-Ann’s mom pulls the two out the door. They walk out of their little cul-de-sac and up the street slightly, over to Toby’s house. He thanks them and watches them walk back to their home through the living room window._

_“Did you have fun, sweetie?”_

_“Yea, I- I’m gonna go to my room,”_

_“Alright, dinner’s chicken casserole,”_

_“Mnhm,”_

He hadn’t thought about Mary-Ann in forever. He missed her. She’d probably be terrified of him now, with what he’d done.

_He walked numbly through the neighbourhood, under the orange glow of the streetlights. He used to be afraid of leaving his house, but that was no longer. He was tired, but that was about it, other than that he was empty. Not even really depressed per se, just tired of living. His hands shoved in his jean pockets as he roamed suburbia. He remembered being afraid of murderers, but at this point he almost hoped for them. Something to give him a reason to run for his life, or to kill him. Everything was spinning, but the night was much less overwhelming than the day._

_He sat down on the cold cement sidewalk under the glow of the familiar streetlight._

_This was his life, whether he liked it or not. Trapped inside for the sake of not getting bullied, schooling from home like a coward. No proximity. He was so lonely, yet he wouldn’t want to be around others anyhow. Why does life have to be so bad?_

 

“I- don’t-,”

“Wake up,”

 

“Toby~ time to get up~” Brian shook the shorter boy’s figure.

“MnmNmnmnhhhhhh,”

“Yea, but we have stuff to do,”

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh,”

Brian practically dragged the brunet out of bed.

“What time is it??” the tired boy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

“Two-forty-five,”

“PM?”

“AM,”

“Jesus, why do we need to be u-up so early?”

“It’s not that early. We’re going to do Tim’s tasks before our own,”

“Why?”

“Because we love him dearly and he had a psychotic breakdown last night,” Brian said casually.

“Is he okay?? Why di-didn’t you wake me up??”

“Relax, he’s fine. It didn’t last very long, and he was super cooperative. Now if we hurry up, we can get most of this stuff done before he even wakes up, which would be even better,”

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Toby groaned.

Brian was so good at keeping his composure. It got on Toby’s nerves a lot. He just always seemed so.. put together, when he really wasn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

They were pretty happy with their progress until they looked at the time.. 7:09.

They looked at each other and a mutual “oh shit” vibe radiated off the two. The made a run for it, trying desperately to complete their two final tasks before 7:30.

By 7:33 they were sprinting home through the dense woods. Finally reaching the front door, they both sat on the porch panting. Finally getting their grip, they head inside and make a beeline for Tim’s bedroom.

They pushed the door open as softly as they could manage, trying to make as little noise as possible as they stripped themselves of their outer layers and facial garb as they crawl onto the bed, curling up against the sleeping boy. Toby fell asleep with his face shoved into the crook of Tim’s neck, while Brian watched the two boys sleep, running his hands in Tim’s hair.

Brian had lost track of time, though it couldn’t have been more than an hour after they had crawled into bed when Tim stirred until he awoke. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and took in his surroundings.

“Morning,” Brian whispered.

“What time is it?” Tim mumbled.

“Uh,” the taller boy looked behind him to the alarm clock in the bedside table, “8:42,”

“Jesus, I overslept,” he shot up.

Toby mumbled, having awoken when Tim began to stir, wrapping his arm around the charcoal haired boy and pulled him back down into the bed.

“We already d-id your tasks,” Toby mumbled into the pillow.

“What?”

“I got him up early and we got all your stuff done and almost all of ours, as well,” Brian explained.

“Why? I’m fully capable,” Tim argued.

“Yeeeeaaaa, but we love you and you don’t deserve to Suffer,”

“I second that,” Toby muffled.

“Yea, well we should get up anyway,” Tim tried to sit up, only to be pulled back down by Toby.

“We’re not letting you go anywhere,” Toby pulled his sleepy face out of the pillow to glare menacingly at the fussy boy, “No use in fighting it,”

Tim glared back, “You guys are insufferable,”

“We love you too, dear,” Brian shot back, half joking.

Tim didn’t enjoy being babied. He knew this was just out of love, and they were just worried about him, but he’d gone his whole life up until this point not being babied like this after every single hallucination, seizure, panic attack, and whatever else was fucked up about his mental health. He pouted for a good 5 minutes over this before taking a deep breath and just embracing that this is how these two would treat him, and they did this out of love and worry. Honestly, once he got past being pouty about it, he was rather grateful. These two people cared about him and his well being enough that they would gladly put up with his shit.

Tim’s thoughts were interrupted by Brian’s soft voice, “You okay?”

He pondered the question for a moment, “Yea, just thinking I guess,”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“Not really,”

“Alrighty then,” Brian smiled softly. If he’d learned anything about Tim, it was that trying to push him to talk about everything was counter-productive, and they’d been friends long enough for Tim to be comfortable sharing what he wants to share, without having to be asked. “Any idea as to what you wanna do today?”

“Do my job,”

“Other than that,”

“I dunno, uh I guess we could watch a movie, or take a walk? Doesn’t really matter to me,”

“Or we could engage in sloppy make outs and be bed-slugs all day,” Toby chirped.

Brian giggled, “Doesn’t really matter to me, whatever feels right,”

 

* * *

 

 

April showers bring May flowers,

May flowers bring the buzz of bees and the songs of birds,

A doe teaching her fawn the way the world works,

Young children frolicking in meadows of green,

Colourful fields of wildflowers strung into crowns,

Pastel colours and soft fabrics,

Cool skin and warm smiles.

Blue jean rompers and white Velcro sneakers,

Buttercups and dandelions in curly brunet hair,

Checkerblooms and daisies in soft burnt caramel hair;

Blue skies and sunshine,

Melodic giggles and crystal-clear creeks,

Band-aids on soft bruised knees,

Ice cream and fluffy pastries.

But for now, it was just April showers, but that brought its own unique characteristics. Green grass, mud puddles and warm baths, cuddling and reading books by lamp light.

Warm soft sheets awaited Tim as he quietly entered Brian’s room. He slipped off his shoes and dirtied outer layers and crawled in the all too familiar bed. Soft arms and careful hands wrapped around his frame, a smiling face pressed against the back of his neck.

The room was quiet, with only the sound of the youngest boy snoozing peacefully on the other side of the bed, the melodic pitter patter of the rain outside the window, and a clock hung on the other side of the room.

“Your hair is wet,” Brian mumbled softly.

“It’s raining,”

“I can hear,” his voice raised matter-of-factly, planting soft kisses to the back of the shorter boy’s neck. “I love you,” voice barely above a whisper.

“I love you too,” Tim’s voice tired and course.

Everything was fuzzy and warm, like a swig of slightly watered-down Tennessee whiskey; just enough water to take the edge off.

Before long, Tim was fast asleep, and Brian slowly drifted off to the feeling of two wonderful sleeping boys surrounding him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot? Maybe. Character progression? Heck yea. Pointless fluff? I'm sorry.
> 
> This fic was going to be a much slower pace but I'm too gay for that ahahaahaaaaaaaaaa
> 
> Basically they're gonna get a car and that's when the actual plot starts??? Lmao I'm bad at writing actual story arks but it's happening, my dudes!
> 
> I'm going to try uploading once a week, saying as sometimes I have no ideas and other times I'm constantly writing,,


	11. Most of this is Gay and has gr8 one liners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s fu- fucking cold out here,”
> 
> “I can’t wait till we have a car,”
> 
> “Oh hush, let’s gooooo,” Tim speeds off.
> 
> “Loving him is,, difficult,”
> 
> “Agreed,” Toby seethes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NYYOOOOOMMM

Waking up alone isn’t fun, especially when you have no idea where everyone is or when they’ll be back. Toby took a deep breath got up. He wandered into his own room, which he probably didn’t use enough, and scavenged around for any sort of entertainment. A pen, a note pad, and a book. Blue ballpoint, big yellow lined pages, soft back with a moon on the cover. He absent-mindedly jotted down some notes;

We should probably get phones

My room is lonely

The moon is really pretty?

What are we going to do with a car?  
I’m still afraid of cars???

Hug Tim

With those very important notes written down, he turned his attention to the book. _life as we knew it_ by Susan Beth Pfeffer. He read the blurb and dove right in. Usually he doesn’t really care for reading, but he vaguely remembers being very enthusiastic about having said book. It’s an apocalyptic book, and by the time he looks at his bedside clock, two hours have passed, he’s halfway through the book, and lowkey having an existential crisis. He feels almost as if the real world might not be there tomorrow, and he has to remind himself he’s not in the apocalypse.

He pulls himself into the shower, and into clean clothes. Down the stairs and into the main living area. A blond boy sat in front of an old 50 inch Sony box TV, some awfully coloured videogame blaring. The young boy in his ridiculous green garb sat next to an older boy, cheap white zipper sweater covered in dirt and blood and God knows what else. The two chattered as they played whatever videogame it was. Toby paid them no mind and quietly slipped out the front door. He sat on the steps of the front porch for a while, listening to the rain as his soot coloured eyes scanned the rainy forest which surrounded him.

He was always tired, he could thank his meds and work for that, but the soft melody of the rain, the familiarity of the smell and humidity and temperature of the air soothed him more than a hard days work could. He leaned his head against the banister and paid attention to his breathing, letting his thoughts drift.

What did this remind him of? An uncle’s cabin? Gravel, grass, trees, lots of trees, big round rocks down at the river. Big fireplace. Wrap around porch. Baby shower? Rain. Lots of rain.

Yea that was real specific, thanks, brain.

He was starting to get cold by the time Hoodie ran his wet hand in Toby’s hair, pulling the boy out of his daze. He felt like it had to be 2pm, but somehow it was only 11. The clouds left him with no actual clues, though. He scuttled inside behind the drenched boys, who made their way upstairs to shower off the cold rain, meanwhile Toby sprawled out on one of the couches, watching the two younger boys play videogames.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Eh, I never really thought of it like that,” Toby shrugged, “I just feel lucky that it’s m-ore of a physical thing rather tha-n a vocal thing. I crack my knuckles, not screa- scream something,”

“Ooh, yea, I guess in that regard you are pretty lucky,”

“I think I’d hate having a physical tic more than a vocal tic,” the charcoal haired boy pondered.

“Nm, I already have thi-is stupid stutter th- stupid stutter thing? And that’s p- pretty miserable. Just try n-ot going insane saying s- saying something completely unrelated over and ove-r as you’re trying to have a conversation,”

“Liiiike saying /towel/ every couple of /towel/ words? Jesus, /towel/ that is miserable,” Tim snorted.

“Yea, and some people have vocal AND phy-sical tics, which is ten times worse,”

“Dude, that’s like getting the frigid cold of winter and the boiling heat of summer all at once, only neither of them are going to a more neutral temperature, just two polar opposites at once,” Brian winces.

“That shouldn’t make sense b- bu- but it does and that’s a great explanation,”

They all laugh.

“So you guys gotta make me f-feel better about myself now, you guys have weird physical q-quirks, right?”

“I mean,, my hips are ticklish,,” Brian giggled.

“Your hips?”

“My hips. Like you know slow dance shit where you put your hands on your partners hips?”

“Yea..?”

“,,I can’t do that,,”

“,,,,I’m going to assume this is important information I’m supposed to use for later,”

“,,You’re not wrong,,”

Toby eyed Tim suspiciously as the taller boy shrugged and bit back a smile.

“,,Dirty,,”

“Filthy,”

“O-okay annnyyway, what about you, Tim?”

“Uh, my neck is ticklish,”

“Yea but we alre-ady know that,” Toby rolled his eyes, smirking, “Give us the inside scoop,” he paused, “That sounded b- better in my head,”

Tim snorted, “Um, does pacing count? Because I pace around a lot,,”

“He plays with pens and pencils a lot, too,”

“Mmmmm yea we’ll co-unt those,” Toby looked back to Brian, signaling that it was his turn.

“Uh,,, oh! I shudder sometimes when I’m nervous or really hyper,”

“Like a fuckin puppy every time,” Tim shakes his head.

“Hm. Tim?”

“I… fidget with my hands a lot?”

“Yea, it’s cute,” Brian coos.

“No it isn’t,” he pouts.

“You used to wash your hands like,, religiously,”

“You click your tongue,”

“Every time you wander into my room you fold my fucking laundry,”

“He does t-that with me, too???” Toby gasps.

“You organize your skittles into rainbow colour order,”

“I do that with gushers, too,” Brian adds. “You re-lace your shoes all the time,”

“They get loose,”

“You’re crazy,”

“You bump your nose with mine every chance you get,”

“And you fucking kiss every inch of my face like I’m a renaissance painting,”

“You are a renaissance painting,,”

“That’s,, fuckin,,,, gay,, hh,,,”

“It’s true,,,”

“Can confirm,” Toby chimes.

“We both religiously pet each others hair,”

“You have really smooth hair,,” Brian’s voice cracks.

“And your hair is so soft,, like,, /how/,”

“We’ve gone c- completely off topic,”

The other two ignore his comment, “You eat gushers off my fingers like it’s sexual,”

“It is sexual,”

“No it isn’t,”

“You squeeze the gushers stuff out of it so it drips down your finger, it very much is a sexual thing,” Tim whines.

“Oh shit, yea, you’re right,” Brian snickers.

“You wake yourself up every time I get out of bed in the middle of the night just so you can stare at my butt,”

“You have a great ass, you can’t blame me,”

“Yea,, but Toby has a great ass,”

“Yea, but you’ve got the fucking choice FDA approved butt,”

“What,,”

“Plus Toby cheats, he wears colours that really match his complexion, and the stupid fuckin,,, striped briefs,, ah,,,” Brian laughes.

“I mean,, you’re right,, but you’re not supposed to say it,,” Tim snorts.

“You two need to fucking chill,” Toby giggles. “Also, I’m a Nice Guy™, I don’t sexualize people,” he jokes, glaring at Brian, “So unlike some uncultured pigs, I think Tim’s best physical quality is his eyes,”

“I fucking,,,” Brian laughs.

“I just… is Eyes,,, they’re just so,,, msdfngjf,” he gurgles.

“You two need to fucking not,” Tim snorts.

“I’m a slut for those fuckin,, like,, vaguely east Asian eyes,,, like fucking Josh Dun,,, I just,, aaa,” he chokes back an only half faked sob.

“I know right they’re fuckin,, aaaaa,” Brian squawks.

The flustered Tim giggles and shakes his head disapprovingly.

“They’re m-my weakness,”

“You’re my weakness,” Tim retorts.

“I,,,, fuckgin- kiss me you stupid,” Toby pouts. Tim snorts, leaning over to kiss the smaller boy, getting lazy halfway through and just laying on the kid.

“We’re so gay what the fuck,,” Brian giggles, joining into the squishy pile of kisses.

 

* * *

 

“Babe,,”

“What?” Brian mumbles, having been half asleep.

“We need to go to the store, now,”

“Babe, it’s ten-thirty-four, what the fuck could you need so desperately at ten-fucking-thirty,”

“We’re out of melatonin,,”

“Oh, fuck,” he shoots out of bed, pulling Toby out with him.

“W-what fucking place would be o- be open this late??”

Tim and Brian exchanged glances before chanting “CVS twenty-four hour pharmacy!”

“Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhggggggggggggg,”

* * *

“It’s fu- fucking cold out here,”

“I can’t wait till we have a car,”

“Oh hush, let’s gooooo,” Tim speeds off.

“Loving him is,, difficult,”

“Agreed,” Toby seethes.

* * *

“Oo they have ice cream,”

“Of course they do, honey,” Brian mutters tiredly.

“No, like they’ve got the good Tillamook stuff,”

“Shit, get some,”

“Chocolate peanut-butter?”

“Get some of the espresso mocha, too,”

“I don’t understand how Tim likes that, it’s bitter,”

“He’s a bitter man,”

“Bitter man with bitter ice cream,”

They both giggle and head to the checkout area to meet back up with Tim.

* * *

“I love the fact we all basically live off this shit,” Brian notes, swallowing the small white vitamins.

“It’s like o- one of those weird couples things,”

“Oh god yea it is,” Tim snorts.

“Oh n-no, melatonin, we’re on some cra-azy radical bad boy drugs,”

“Let’s go to sleep, already, I’m tired of listening to y’all,” Brian shakes his head, striding to his bed and crawling up into the now cold blankets. “Get your asses under the covers it’s fuckin cold,”

“Coming,” Tim chimes.

“Yes, sir,” Toby rolls is eyes, following along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also hey you can message me/ask me shit anonymously on my curiouscat ;)  
> https://curiouscat.me/RubyCanSeeYou
> 
> Sorry this ones short, it was originally going to be apart of the next chapter but this one has like no plot and the chapter would be almost 4000 words so N O  
> Next chapter will be on Tuesday??? Probably?? And it has P L O T ! ! !! !! ! ! ! ! ! ! W O W Z A


	12. cAt + plot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Toby frolicked through the 24-hour Walmart around 11pm. Buying the cat necessities and Toby whining about how Sasha needs every single cat gadget in the store.
> 
> A good $200 was spent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uploading this early bcuz I'm going to be busy all week
> 
> I'm trying to think about how I'm going to end this story (after at least 10 more chapters ofc) and I dunno if it'll be edgy or sweet
> 
> oops

Running. Tripping. Falling. Rolling. Scraping. Bleeding.

The forest was riddled with slippery slopes, dried up creek beds, and rolling terrain. This made running blindly through such a treacherous land stupidly dangerous.

Running in the dark wasn’t that fun, now that he thought about it. Hoodie hurried after him, worriedly glancing over over his body, helping the short boy to his feet.

“You’re bleeding,”

“It’s n-not that bad,”

“I’ll carry you home,”

“I scraped my knee, I didn’t break my ankle,” Toby hissed.

“Too bad,” The taller boy scooped the other into his arms.

Toby squirmed, “It’s not l-like I feel it,” he defended.

“Shut up and stop squirming, that was a gnarly wipe out, I’m not taking any chances with you,”

Toby huffed, but as the adrenalin ran out and the blood loss got to his head, he spaced out, grasping tightly to the boy’s burnt sienna hoodie.

Blood trickled down the brunet’s legs and arms, seeping through his clothes. He was lucky he didn’t break anything.

“Toby~,” Hoodie sing-songed; “Toby, I need you to stay with me,” he urged, shaking the boy lightly, “Toby,”

“Hn?”

“What’s your favourite colour?”

“Nn green ‘er yellow,” he slurred like a child.

“Aaannd what’s your middle name?”

“U-uh Erin,”

“Aaand what’s your favourite fruit?”

“Uh, strawberries..? I du-nno,,”

“Alrighty, we’re almost home; what colour is your hair?”

“Brown, duh,” a loopy waver in his voice made the taller boy’s anxiety spike.

“Alright, what’s your favourite thing to do?”

“Uh, I rea- I really really like spending time w-ith yooouuuuuuuu n Tiiim,,,”

“Mnhm, just hang in there, sweetheart,”

The rest of that was a blur, and next thing Toby knew, he was sitting on Brian’s bed, shivering in his underwear as Brian rubbed alcohol wipes on his scraped up knees, forearms, and hands. He looked around, dazed, blinking and shifting his focus on Brian’s eyes.

“YouUrr eyes ‘er p-pretty,”

“Thank you,” Brian said slightly caught off guard, having grown used to the quiet that had fallen upon the younger boy half an hour ago.

“There’re harrd t- to explain,, they’re a greenish blue,, a-a pale one,, they’re soo pretty,,” he slurred.

Brian wrapped up the delutional boy’s knees and arms, covering his scraped hands in band-aids.

“Toby~, we’re going to get you into pajamas and then we’re gonna sleep, okay?”

“Nkay,” he cracked his knuckles and poked at the band-aids on his palms and wrists as Brian fiddled with his dresser drawers across the room, pulling out pajama pants and one of Tim’s old ratty shirts. He pulled the baggy clothes onto the emaciated pale boy.

“Remind me to feed you more,” Brian shook his head.

“Feeeeed mee moorreee,” the twitchy boy giggled.

“Real helpful,” the burnt caramel haired boy snorted, rolling his eyes. His voice softened in the way a mother’s does, “Do you want socks?”

“Nn yes p- ack- please,” he mumbled, nodding his head.

Brian trotted back to his dresser, pulling out warm fuzzy socks for the injured boy, putting them on the boy’s cold feet. Toby’s toes curled and fidgeted at first but stopped after the socks were on all the way. He ran his hands through the younger boy’s messy hair and kissed his forehead, tucking him under the covers.

“You get some sleep, sweetheart, I’ll be right here,” He comforted, petting the boy’s side.

He looked so peaceful, while Brian bit at his nails, hoping to god that Tim would hurry up. Minutes seemed like hours before the door quietly creaked open and closed. Brian shot up and stumbled to the older boy.

“Is he okay?”

“H-he’s going to be fine,” Brian swallowed. “He lost a decent bit of blood, though, so we’re going to have to keep a close eye,” his voice trembled and cracked. Tim’s arms wrapped around his form and he collapsed into the stronger man’s embrace.

“You did wonderfully,” Tim consoled, rubbing circles into the taller boy’s back. “Deep breaths; let’s get some sleep,”

They stumbled through the dark room, pulling themselves into cool, clean, soft cotton pajamas and into Brian’s now warm bed sheets. Tim’s arm swathed tightly around Brian’s form and Toby curled up into Brian’s chest. He took deep breaths and swallowed the lump in his throat.

This went okay, he handled this okay, everything’s going to be okay, Toby is okay, Tim is okay, he’s okay, everything is fine.

Usually Brian was very level headed, and good at keeping his cool, but with how quickly Toby lost blood, he was still shaken and on edge. His mind always jumped to the worst case scenario and it didn’t help him in these situations.

Everything’s okay, just get some sleep.

Tomorrow things will be okay.

 

* * *

 

The nice ambiance of Tim plucking away at his ukulele filled Brian’s bedroom with a familiar sense of comfortability and stability Toby could really be thankful for. He half leaned on the charcoal haired boy as he picked at his cuticles, listening to the tranquil tune. Brian lay on his stomach, fiddling with Tim’s laptop, also enjoying the nice tune. The weather outside was calm, for once, though it was too muggy to enjoy the break in the incessant rain.

It was a calm day, overall. Not a lot of tasks, not a lot of chores, no real rush into getting anything done. It was a nice change of pace. The brunet studied Tim in his concentrative stupor, eyebrows knit together as he chewed the inside of his cheek, focusing intently on his calloused hands plucking the small strings of the mini guitar. Square black glasses framed the older boy’s face quite well. He was adorable.

The melody was repetitive, but not in an annoying sense. One bit was the G chord and E minor chord, the other was a mash between A minor, A7, A, D minor, and F chords (sounds complex, really isn’t). Toby could emulate the first part, with his little knowledge of musical instruments (specifically ukulele), but the second part, while not that difficult, he didn’t know the correct positions for all the chords. This had all been explained to him on a previous occasion, after much nagging, of course. He had no idea what A minor, A7, A, F, or D minor were at all. All he knew were C, G and E minor, and he barely knew those.

Each time Tim would repeat the tune, he’d change something; the tempo, the strum pattern, something. Something fresh, it was really cool, simple, but Toby absolutely loved it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Wandering in the woods happens sometimes. Not as often as killing people, or running from the cops, but still often enough that Toby would write it in as part of the job. Making sure no one was too close to home, making sure nothing suspicious was going down, making sure no one was getting lost, or.. looking for.. Something. But today it was mostly just to decompress, since it was close to the end of the day, but not Quite There to the point they feel like it’d be to early to turn in for the night.

So Toby and Masky wandered aimlessly through the woods, following the poorly maintained trails most had forgotten existed. Usually Toby talks everyone’s ears off, but now he was quiet. They wandered, never straying far from each other, and keeping a relaxed pace, until something catches the young boys eye and he darts off.

With this job, you never really know what you’re going to get, and with Toby that is more true than anyone previously thought possible; Masky keeping this in mind, cautiously quickened his pace to catch up to the spry boy.

“It’s a- it’s a cat,”

“What?”

Toby nudged the taller boy and pointed to the base of a tree, “It’s a cAt,” he cracked his neck.

The cat was a gray-brown tabby, and blend in quite well. It sat, looking upon the two strange looking boys in front of her.

“Caaaaat,”

“Toby,”

“Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat,”

“Toby,” Masky said more firmly.

“Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-hng-aaaaaaaaaaat,”

“Yes, cat, let’s move on,”

“We should keep it,”

“Why on God’s green earth should we keep a random cat we found in the woods?”

“It’s pretty. A-And she doesn’t seem to have an issue with us,”

“Where would we keep her?”

“Brian’s room,”

“Brian’s allergic,”

“Well then h-he can suck it the fuck up and deal with it,”

“We could keep it in your room,”

“Oh yea, we could do that I guess,”

A silence fell upon the two, Masky realizing what he’d just signed up for, and cursing himself for signing up for the Pain Train™ that was cat ownership.

“We should buy her some food,,, at the store,”

“Tomorrow? It’s getting dark, my legs hurt,,”

“Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh f-Fine, but we’re going to the store firs-st thing tomorrow,” he strode up to the cat and picked her up, her weird limp cat body felt like furry jell-o in Toby’s arms. That’s one of the things he loved about cats. The cat didn’t seem to mind his tics, which was another plus, and as the two walked with their new pet, they bumped into Hoodie.

“Cat,” Brian noticed.

“Cat,” Toby echoed.

“What’s its name?”

“Sasha?” Toby turned to Masky for validation on the name.

He shrugged, “It’s your fuckin cat,”

“Sasha,” Toby nodded his head firmly.

“Keep it out of my room,”

“Will do, let’s go hooooommmeeeeE-eee,”

Thus, the three boys walked home, cat in tow.

* * *

Brian and Tim sat on the youngest boy’s bed, giggling as they watched him very meticulously make a cat bed out of towels and dirty clothes.

“Toby,,?”

“SH. I’m /WORKING/” he snapped and continued making something that looked more like a nest. Once he reached his desired result, he stepped back to behold his mangled creation. He giddily trotted over to Tim, pulling the cat right out of his lap, and carrying her to her `bed`. She curled up in it and fell right to sleep.

He smiled and skipped over to the giggling boys.

“Nice,”

“I’m never coming into your room or touching either of you ever again,” Brian said sternly.

“Awwww come on, we’ll wash our hands,” Tim nudged the taller boy.

“You fuckin better,” he snorted, “My eyes itch just being in here,”

“That’s brutal, how dare you be cursed with the inability to be around cats,” Toby frowned.

“I don’t really like cats anyways,” Brian shrugged, “Now change your sweater if you’re going to touch me,”

“Frick you, I’m sleeping in my own bed,”

“Wow, that happens like once a week,” Tim said half sarcastically.

“And you usually end up in one of our beds,” Brian adds.

“,,I don’t like sleeping alone,,”

“Then why don’t you give up and just sleep with one of us?” the charcoal haired boy inquires.

“B-because I’m a big boy and I can sleep by myself,” he pouted jokingly.

“Mm,” Tim nodded.

The two pulled themselves off Toby’s bed and ushered themselves out.

“Goodnight,” Brian murmered.

“G’night,” Toby mumbled back, flopping onto his bed.

He took a deep breath, letting gravity pin him to the bed, before pulling himself up to unlace his shoes. He pushed them off his feet and unzipped his jacket, throwing it to the corner of his room. He crawled under his comforter and stared at the ceiling.

“Shit, sleeping alone is nice,” Toby sighed. “I haven’t done this in a while,”

He rolled onto his side soon enough, he was fast asleep.

 

At some point around 2am he was woken up to Tim crawling in bed, he cuddled up to the taller boy and fell right back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe we were working on that o-one fuckin task all day,”

“Yea, me neither. It didn’t help that there was a fucking dog. I was not expecting that,”

“My calves still burn from running,”

“Mine too,”

Tim and Toby frolicked through the 24-hour Walmart around 11pm. Buying the cat necessities and Toby whining about how Sasha needs every single cat gadget in the store.

A good $200 was spent.

“As m-much as I hate cars, if we don’t get one soon I’m going to scream. I can’t ca-arry cat litter fourteen miles once every other week.

Tim chuckled, “Yea, next week, or the week after. We’ve got a pressing issue in Oregon we need to address within the month. Something in Nebraska, South Dakota, and one in Massachusetts,”

“I hardly know where any of those are,”

“It’s a lot of driving,” he sighed. “It’s a lot of fucking money, too,” he complained. “We’re going to start selling dead bodies on the deep web,”

“You’re kidding.. r-r-right?”

“Nope. Three grand per body. We /need/ that money,”

Toby laughed, though he didn’t really know why. He laughed until he wheezed, then Tim made them sit down for a while until he stopped laughing.

“We’re monsters,” Toby shook his head in amusement.

“We’re good people doing bad things,”

“We’re bad people, Tim,”

“No we aren’t,” Tim shot back.

“Think abo- about that,”

Tim didn’t like thinking about that. They weren’t bad people, they were just stuck in a bad circumstance, right? That’s all it was..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eyyyy caught y'all at the end with some E D G E  
> >;D
> 
> ask me shit https://curiouscat.me/RubyCanSeeYou
> 
> please recommend me good Marble Hornets/Proxy-centric fanfics on here (no nsfw, you filthy sinners) I'm too much of a pussy to look myself,,,
> 
> Don't forget to comment,,,, I need,,, v a l i d a t i o n,,, hh,,,,h,,,,


	13. Fluff, Angst, and Plot; Oh My!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terror isn’t just an emotion, it’s an action, a state of being, a sensation, an experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is old??? I've been holding back on uploading this forever??? save me????
> 
> Trigger warning!! panic attack/hallucination at the beginning, feel free to skip if it makes you uncomfortable! It has lot's of fluff to soften it out, though.

Terror isn’t just an emotion, it’s an action, a state of being, a sensation, an experience. How your eyes go wide, your heartrate spikes, your stomach falls into your feet, your body goes rigid as you weigh your options. A numbing heatwave rushes over your body, and in an instant that heat is replaced with a frigid cold. You feel as if your head might explode, or your body will turn to dust. How your very existence is overcome with dread. You watch your life slither along, but you can’t do anything, you can’t move, you can’t steady your breathing, you can’t scream, you can’t fight. You quiver in horror, your throat tightens, and your mouth goes dry. You feel like passing out, throwing up, running, hiding, fighting, crying, ripping yourself out of existence as you knew it; Anything. But instead you stand and watch the scene play out like a cinema.

It’s just a hallucination, it’s not real. He Knew That, but that didn’t make it any better. He watched the horribly misshapen black figure crawl towards him. It was more of a silhouette than a tangible being. It was the upper half of a humanoid figure, with its head and neck stretched like a videogame glitch. It uses its arm-like appendages to pull itself to the frightened boy. It grasps onto his right leg, almost like a small child would, only this embrace was one laced with bad intentions. Its grip tightened as it leeched itself onto his leg,

and then he screamed.

Loudly.

 

Tears streamed down his face as Brian’s arms cradled his shaking figure.

“Shh, shh, you’re okay, everything’s okay,” Brian hushed, running his hands through Toby’s soft hair. “Everything’s going to be alright, sweetheart, just breathe, yea like that, you’re doing so good, hun. Just focus on your breathing, just like we practiced,”

Slowly but surely Toby calmed down. Once he was responsive again, Brian pulled the frail boy onto his messy bed.

“I’m going to get Tim, alright? Just stay right here and focus on your breathing, okay?” Brian cupped Toby’s cheek, looking into his puffy eyes.

“Mnhm,” he hiccupped, nodding.

Brian hurriedly left the room, and before Toby knew it, Tim was at the brunet’s side. Still no Brian, though.

“You okay? You seem kind of tired,”

“Y-yea, I just didn’t get a lot of sleep,” Toby sighs.

“That seemed like a pretty bad one,”

“It w- it was,”

“Lasted pretty long, too,” Tim winced.

Toby shrugged, nodding his head slightly.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Do you want to talk about it at all? You don’t have to… but,, sometimes it helps,, ya know?”

“I feel like this is o-ne I feel comfortable sharing, if it weren’t f-or the fact that I legiteac- l- le- legitimatieal- legitimately can’t explain it. It was more of one of tho-ose that’s just an overwhelming sense of panic and you know y-you shouldn’t be this scared,, but you are,” he shuddered.

“Those suck. Was it like,, a specific figure or like a sensation or something that made you panic or did it start as a panic attack?”

“It was this figure,,, just- uGHk- i-it was just like- disturbing, and I w-wasn’t expecting it,, which m-made the whole situation worse,” Toby explained best he could. “It seemed so real, it felt so real,” his voice cracked.

“That’s terrible,” Tim changed the subject, “So how are you? I forget to ask this a lot,,,” he giggles nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I-I mean,, not terribly. Not really getting enough sleep-p, and I think the stress is starting to build up, but I’m mentally so-Und, I have a roof to sleep under, I’m remembering to e-at at least once a day, showering at least twice a week,” he swallowed, “I’m taking my m-m-meds, I have people in my life wh- I have people in my life who unconditionally love and support me and take c-are of me,,” he scrunches up his nose as he flashes a flustered smile, his ears burning, “So pretty nice, all things considered,”

Tim smiles, genuinely happy to hear the positive thinking, “That’s great, hun,”

“So,, then, how are you?”

“I mean, tired, and definitely stressed, but good. Brian is the only thing keeping me from running myself into the ground,” he snorts, “Nevertheless, things are gradually getting better and better, so I’ve got a positive outlook on the future. I just hope this whole car business isn’t as fucking difficult as I think it will be,”

Toby’s eyes glimmered as he listened to Tim talk, sincerely invested in what the older boy had to say.

Brian discreetly opened the door to Toby’s room, shutting it with his foot. When he made eye contact with the tired boys sitting on Toby’s bed, he smiled.

“I brought tea and blankets,” he gestures to the steaming mugs in his hands and blankets draped over his shoulders. He sets the mugs down carefully on the nightstand, next to the alarm clock and the lamp that currently illuminated the otherwise dark room. He’d usually toss the blankets at them, but they were all emotionally and physically exhausted, so he softly draped them over their shoulders, keeping one of the blankets for himself. Brian sat right next to Toby, wrapping his arm around the short boy, who leaned up against the burnt caramel haired boy.

They sipped tea and chattered until Toby fell asleep. They tucked him in, then squished themselves onto the small bed, soon falling asleep as well.

 

* * *

 

 Black converse hightops on bed sheets, hands tangled in wavy hair, talks of numbers Toby didn’t understand, groans of frustration intertwine with a soft voice of reassurance.

“If we keep an eye out for the cheapest gas, use the car strictly for driving long distance, and only fill up when we’re down to a hundred miles, we might be okay,” Tim chewed at his lip, looking at the squiggles on his note pad.

Toby tugged at the laces of his converse, eventually just untying them and tossing them on the ground.

“EJ said he’d already had some money he’d saved up lying around somewhere, he’d be willing to give us,” Brian countered.

“Does he really want to split gas cost half and half? Even though he knows he’s not going to use the car nearly as much as us?” Tim inquires, still a bit irritated at that idea.

“Yea, he knows we need it more than he does. For the sake of the well being of all of us n’ stuff,”

“Still sounds unfair,”

“Well, if we end up with a steady flow of money, which none of us can guarantee as of late, it will be reworkable. Just be thankful for his generosity,” Brian kissed the shorter boy’s cheek.

“Mn, I hate how far fetched the black market body selling thing sounds,,”

“We all do,” Brian chuckled, “But it’s a good idea, and probably one of the only things going for us right now,”

“Yea,” the charcoal haired boy sighs, looking over his math once more. After determining that, indeed, his calculations were correct, and that almost everything was in order, he turned his attention to the very tired and dazed Toby. The young boy picked at his sleeves as Brian ran his hands through Toby’s messy brunet hair. “How you holdin’ up?”

After not hearing Brian respond, Toby looks up, “Oh, uh, fine,” he jerks his head, “I’m super fucking ti- tired,”

Brian giggles, “Aren’t we all,”

“So how’s this whole car thing going? I haven’t been paying attention,”

“I could tell,” Tim chimes matter-of-factly, “It’s alright, kind of stressful, just because we really need it ASAP, but other than it being a pain in my ass, everything is going great,”

“What ever happened to that Montessori idea?”

“I still think it’s a good idea,” Brian explains.

“I don’t,” Tim interrupts.

“But since we need a car within the month, and because a certain someone wouldn’t let me anyway,” he glares at Tim, “It’s not happening,”

“Too bad, it was a cute idea,” Toby sighs. “So what’s the game plan for tomorrow?”

* * *

Trotting through the thicket that surrounded everything, Toby followed Hoodie to their next task. Something simple, nothing out of the ordinary.

Funny how Toby never really remembers this part of the day, even though it’s the most socially unacceptable thing he does everyday and the thing that takes up the most time out of his day.

It just always seems bland to him. Walking through forest, passing abandoned buildings he remembers exploring with the excitement of a child, gathering information on a subject (or a few), maybe interfering with (or killing) someone who’s poking their nose where they shouldn’t be. Mostly the light of the sun left them with much more mundane tasks like chasing people out of the woods.

He cared much more about the raw emotion and comfort he felt around those he cared so deeply for, leaving this part of his day to seem insignificant.

I digress, an hour of walking led them to a quaint suburb, neat houses chalked up in rows, tall picket fences and small back yards. The sun was halfway through setting, when they determined that they had reached the house they needed to be at.

“The dad has a home office on the second story, he’s got a USB with a little too much info on us. Don’t get caught,” Hoodie explained. “I’ll be right here, make this quick, I’m not looking forward to walking an hour in the dark,”

There was a minivan parked in front, and a child’s swingset in the back yard. Toby pulled himself onto the fence, where the fence met the house, he climbed his way up, using ledges and windowsills to get him up to the second story. He pulled himself in through the window of what he identified to be a child’s bedroom. Second youngest, age 5, likes cars. Small bedroom with gray walls and toys scattered about the floor.

He sneaked around the upstairs bedrooms till he realized that the family was downstairs having dinner. He quickly darted to the last room down the hall. Home office. Laptop, expensive looking PC. He found said USB in the top drawer of the desk. He pocketed it and dashed for the room he had first entered.

He crawled back out the window and shimmied to the edge of the house. He jumped, scaling the fence and landing on his feet. He jogged over to where Hoodie was hiding and handed him the USB.

“Good job, let’s get out of here,”

 

The sounds of the night are so sad in the winter. So quiet. Snow falls silently through the dead forest, the grass is fickle and sickly, the trees are bare, and the wildlife disappeared. The temperature is far too cold to be comfortable, and the frosty night only makes that worse.

Finally, the weather is getting warmer, and he could hear tree frogs and bugs and birds. They all sang their little songs, harmonizing to the tempo of the fading light of the horizon.

They jumped over a small stream winding its way through the forest when Hoodie broke the silence.

“This is a weird lifestyle, man,”

“Y-yea,”

“Sometimes I wish things could go back to normal,”

Toby didn’t really have anything to say to that, so instead he tugged Hoodie’s arm and stopped walking. The confusion radiated off Hoodie as he looked perplexed at the short boy.

Toby hugged the taller boy tightly, unwilling to let go, so the hug went on for a while. Hoodie’s posture laxed and he returned the gesture until the brunet finally pulled away.

“I needed that.. thanks,” Hoodie cleared his throat, continuing walking.

“I did too,”

“Love you,”

“Love you too,” Toby giggled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these next few chapters are going to be a bit shorter??  
> also for a few chapters, we'll be focusing a little less on plot and a little more on character development and fluff   
> that's mostly because I want to give the illusion of time passing for the sake of realism ehehehe,,
> 
> follow me on my insta btw, my DMs are always open ;))) @ruby_rudd


	14. A Preface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We’ll be fine, I’m confident that we’ll get all of this worked out correctly,” he said reassuringly, grabbing Brian’s wrist to pull his hand away from his mouth.
> 
> “You sure,,?” his gaze flickered around before finally looking into Tim’s chocolate eyes.
> 
> “Completely and totally,”
> 
> “I love you,”
> 
> “I love you too,” he smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY GUESS WHO RETURNS  
> THIS TIME WITH AN ACTUAL PLOT  
> I FINALLY FIGURED OUT THE ENDING SO I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON
> 
> I might combine some of the previous chapters together just to save time?? idk  
> Sorry for not updating, finals were kicking my ass.
> 
> Hey guess what fucking character I'm gonna throw in the mix? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFuckin Kate!!!!!!! K a t e  
> Slenderman's (unpopular) feral child-  
> I absolutely love Kate the Chaser and figured that she was the variable the story needed to actually make this a story with a struggle. Interpersonal.   
> The next chapters might take longer to get out but most of them are more than 3000 words so y'all prepare yourselves..

Gluggavedur is Icelandic for “window weather”, weather that is nice to look at from inside, but not so nice to be outside in.

Huggelig is Danish for “Cozy” “Homely” “Warm”, and a general feeling of cozy content nature.

 

The day had been hot and sunny, and the boys had been hiking through the woods, enjoying the nice weather as they explored. The sun shone through the budding green leaves of the patch of deciduous trees they had found themselves in. Quaking aspen and oak trees spread far and wide, a change up from the usual pine trees and redwoods.

Roots tangled and tripped the boys until they stopped to rest under a magnificent tree. Branches spread out to the sky as the roots did to the dirt beneath them. It was a sight to behold. Branches and roots alike streaked across the canopy and ground like fingers of lightning. An Indian Laurel Fig tree.

A fairly common tree throughout California, but a marvelous one none the less. Tim and Brian sat on the exposed roots as Brian pulled a water bottle out of his backpack, passing it over to the charcoal haired boy. Toby circled the magnificent tree and had an epiphany. The most magnificent trees are snuggled in unexpected places, not smack dab in the middle of thickets, surrounded by lesser trees, like peasants to a king. Things are never the same as in cinemas. Movies and books deceive, feeding a hopeless delusion, rather than the truth.

This was a perfect climbing tree, and as the excitement tingled through his body, he abruptly pulled himself up the tree, scaling its branches all the way to the top. He was very good at climbing trees, and very enthusiastic about it. He’d been fond of said activity far back into his childhood. He had turned it into something of a sport, he and his sister would compete against each other, seeing who could reach the top first, or who was fastest at climbing down. Even without a good sense of balance, muscle memory and upper-body strength catered to this activity.

Reaching the top was rewarding, looking upon the rest of the forest, seeing where the trees changed from redwoods to aspens. In all technicality, he was pretty sure that meant they had officially hiked out of Rosswood Park. He could see the horizon stretch and bend with the curvature of the earth. He was careful to enjoy the moment, as he didn’t have much time to enjoy insignificant things like this.

Off to the side, huddled around small mountains were dark, angry looking clouds. Their very presence was threatening to the short boy. He took one more moment to saver the cool breeze, as faint as it was, before practically jumping down.

“There’s some stormy clouds off in the distance,” Toby cracked his knuckles as he sat next to Tim.

“Where?” Brian stood, grasping a low branch.

“Off by the m-mountains,”

Brian pulled himself up into the tree, albeit not as gracefully as Toby, but still decently graceful. He had a much better sense of balance, yet not as much strength and a much more hindered reach. He hadn’t climbed much since a certain incident which left him a bit panicky at heights and, well, sore. Broken bones in both legs, broken ribs, and all sorts of pulled muscles and ligaments won’t always heal completely. This was good practice, and though it did bring discomfort, it was significantly duller than the last time he’d climbed a tree.

Scaling to the top, he scanned the surrounding area, eyes landing on the previously stated mountains and angry clouds. He took a deep breath and cautiously climbed down.

“Storm’s coming in. It’s spreading in the wind,”

“Should w-we head back?”

“Probably a smart idea, don’t want to get caught in an April storm,” Tim chimed.

Thus, the three collectively navigated themselves back the direction they came. Toby skipped ahead, still feeling energetic from climbing.

“That didn’t hurt too much, did it?”

“Not nearly as much as it used to, still a little stiff, and I should probably work on that, but definitely not as much pain as last time,”

“Last time was not fun to watch,”

“Last time was not fun to experience,”

Tim snickered, “Is it in your legs or your back?”

“Eh my left ankle is stiff, and it probably always will be a bit stiff, as will my right knee, but it’s mostly muscles in my back that got all fucked up back then,”

“I’m sorry,”

“It’s not your fault,”

“I want to disagree, but we’ve been over this a hundred times and I know, but, still, sorry,”

“I get it. Neither of us were really in a great place, I’ve got nothing to blame anyone for,” Brian reassured the shorter boy, flashing him a smile.

Toby didn’t really understand what they were talking about. He understood there was a history, a bad one at that, and that Brian got pretty roughed up physically, while Tim got roughed up more mentally and emotionally. He’d never really bothered to ask, they’d tell him if they felt like it, and he really didn’t feel like pushing it. He knew the bare minimum and understood the conversation to be Tim worrying about an injury Brian must’ve sustained at some point, and Tim blaming himself for said mishap.

Quiet fell upon the three. Not awkward, just a sense of calm. Enjoying the forest.

They chatted flatly about tasks they’d been on, about subjects they’d encountered, and giggled at each other’s misfortune.

Deciduous trees turned back into redwoods and pine as they walked the winding game trails, which eventually turned into walking paths the further you got into Rosswood Park.

The breeze had turned into a wind, and a cold one at that. They made themselves comfortable in Brian’s room as they watched the weather go from hot and sunny to cold and wicked. They shed their boots, curling up on Brian’s bed.

“I don’t even really like tea, but this is nice,” Tim spoke softly, perplexation twisting his tone.

“Tea is weird like that,” Brian nods, smiling.

“I’ve only now b-begun to build up a tolerance for green tea,”

“I don’t get it with y’all and green tea, it’s fucking good,”

“Yea it’s not bad, it’s just that it takes a while to get used to,”

“Blasphemy,”

“You just unironically said `y’all`,” Tim gushed, trying (and failing) to hold back a smile.

“Fuck you I’m from god damn Alabama, cut me some slack,” Brian barked.

“`Y’all`,” Toby echoed.

“I will stab you in your sleep,”

“You would never,” Toby gasped lightheartedly.

“I- I mean you’re not wrong but,,” Brian stumbled. “But you’re not supposed to say it,,,”

They all giggled.

The wind and rain pounded on the glass, which had been mostly covered by curtains. Toby tugged it open, and they all watched as large rain drops splattered upon contact. It was raining, hard. Wind rustled the trees and brought the rain in uneven waves, heaps of unorganized tiny water soldiers smashing against the building. It splattered and trickled, it was quite a sight.

The boys told stories they remembered of the rain as they sipped tea and curled under blankets.

“I remember pulling on rubber boots and jumping in puddles,” Brian snickered, “My mom always got so cross with me, I’d be soaking wet and covered in mud. Then I’d track it in the house, she’d be so mad for about an hour, then I’d apologize and she’d make me a snack,”

“That’s cute,” Tim snorted, “I remember curling up on the couch and watching Bambi,”

“I love that movie,” Brian gasped.

“I know, we’ve watched it like a hundred times,”

“Yea,” Brian giggled. “What do you remember about the rain?” he turned to the brunet.

“Uh, well there were never any thunder stor- storms where I grew up, which always made me s-so mad, but I remember staring out the window hoping for thunder- and lightning,”

“Have you ever seen lightning?” the caramel haired boy asks.

“Uh, p-pictures,”

“We’ll make sure you see some,” Tim gives him a reassuring look.

“Good, it’s about time,” Toby pouted light-heartedly.

“There’s good thunder storms in the south,” Brian echoes.

“Yea there’s also like, hurricanes n shit,” he points out.

“Eh, you get used to it,”

“That is a terrifying thought,” Tim laughs.

“It’s just part of the Southern/Atlantic experience,” Brian shrugs.

“Glad I didn’t g-grow up in the south, then,”

“I second that,” Tim adds.

The rain pattered violently on the glass, yet somehow it was calming, in that weird way.

Toby tangled himself in blankets as he listened to the rain undertone Brian and Tim laughing at each other.

The warm of the inside mixed with the melodic stampede of rain and mixed with the exhaustion of walking to concoct the perfect conditions to curl up against each other to fall asleep. Limbs tangled as voices hushed. The three murmured tales of times past to the tune of the storm.

Toby was close to dozing off before he shot up, “I have to feed Sasha,” he crawled out of their warm cocoon and dashed to his room. It was dark, as he had the lights off and curtains drawn. The only source of light was the soft yellow light of the hallway as it flooded in through the open door.

He looked around panicked for a moment, unable to spot his feline friend. He poured a scoop of dry food into her food bowl, checking to also make sure she had water. His eyes scanned the rom once more, falling onto his bed, where she lay, sleeping peacefully. He giggled at the mischievous cat before dashing back to Brian’s room.

He crawled back into bed, curling up on Tim’s lap. He listened to Brian and Tim talk nonsense softly.

“And what do you think we should do about food? We can’t eat out constantly,”

“Gas station,”

“No, Tim I’m serious,”

“I am, too,”

“We can live off of beef jerky and ritz bitz,”

“No we cannot,”

“I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again,”

 “You worry me,”

“I know,” he snickered. “We can also eat at Denny’s or McDonalds or whatever,”

“Yuck,”

“We can get produce at some gas stations,” he shrugged.

“Sounds like some crazy future technology right there,”

“I know, but for real, Mr. `an apple a day`,”

“I like fruit,” Brian defended.

“Whatever, fruit boy,”

“Alright,” he changed the subject, “Then we need to like, set a budget? Should we do a daily budget or weekly budget?”

“Weekly?” his voice raised unsurely, “I’d be tempted to buy things we don’t need if we had a daily budget,”

“Right. $450 weekly budget?”

“Including gas?”

“Excluding,,?”

“Including. As long as we watch what we buy I think we’ll be fine,” he ran his hands through Toby’s soft hair.

“We’re like college students all over again,”

“Only this time no calling mom asking her to deposit $2000 into our bank accounts,”

“Hey I only did that once,” Brian protested.

“It was beautiful,”

“Fuck you,”

“There are children present,”

“I’m not a child, but thanks,” Toby mumbled.

The two older boys laughed at the half asleep boy as he mumbled incoherently.

“Road tripping with the two of you is going to be the most interesting experience ever,” Brian sighed.

“We’re going to have a fuck ton of fun,”

“Wait where the fuck are we going to sleep?” Toby blurted, sitting up.

“Oh,”

“Shit,” Brian groaned, “I didn’t even think about that,”

“I refuse to sleep in a car the entire time,” Tim protested.

“No, no, I think we’ll be fine, as long as we watch how expensive it is. We’ll find the cheapest motel in town and stay there, if there’s nothing under $75 for one night, we’ll sleep in the car,”

Tim whined just thinking about having to sleep in a car.

“I just single handedly saved your asses and you know it,” Toby muffled.

“I-,” Tim paused, “Yea, you did. Thank you,”

“I love you I’m gonna fall asleep now; you’re welcome,” he slurred, patting Tim on the cheek before curling back up on his lap.

“Sleep well, dork,” Brian snickered, playfully pushing the sleepy boy.

“So we’ll have to go to a laundromat-thing to wash our clothes eventually. How often do you think we should do that?” Tim changed the subject, turning his gaze to the taller boy.

“Depends on how many days’ worth of clothes we have,” he shrugs.

“I’ve got a week and a half, maybe two weeks at most,”

“I’ve got roughly three weeks’ worth,”

“I think Toby has a little more than a weeks’ worth,” Tim estimated.

“Then once every seven-or-so days,” Brian suggested. “I probably won’t pack all of it, only two weeks’ worth, so I can skip a week I guess?”

“Yea, that makes sense,”

“God I hope we can work out all these kinks and variables before we get this shit started,” Brian bit at his nails anxiously.

“Well, we’re buying the car, what, Thursday?”

“Wednesday,”

“Wednesday, then we’ll probably be on the road Friday,” he explained, “That’s almost a week from now, we’ve worked out just about everything financially, we’ve got someone to lean on to get us more money in an emergency, we’ve got plenty of money as long as we spend it wisely. We’ll be fine, I’m confident that we’ll get all of this worked out correctly,” he said reassuringly, grabbing Brian’s wrist to pull his hand away from his mouth.

“You sure,,?” his gaze flickered around before finally looking into Tim’s chocolate eyes.

“Completely and totally,”

“I love you,”

“I love you too,” he smiled.

 

.

 

Warm soft sheets felt almost like velvet against Toby’s skin. His left hand has shyly gripping the end of Brian’s shirt, with his other hand tucked under his chin. His back was covered in Tim’s warm presence, arm wrapped around the smaller boy’s middle, Tim’s scraggly face nuzzled into wavy brunet hair. Toby yawned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he scanned his surroundings.

Everything about Brian’s bed was far superior to his own. Brian’s pillows were softer, sheets were cozier, and it all smelled vaguely of vanilla and lavender. It was intoxicating, as were the two boys he’s currently tangled up with.

Toby stirred, changing the position of his half-bent legs. He felt Tim nuzzle his hair as a grin grew across the older boy’s face.

“G’morning, sunshine,” Tim croaked quietly.

“‘Mornin’,” Toby mumbled, smile seeping into his voice.

Tim’s eyes fluttered as he looked over the sleeping boy across from them. Brian was still dead asleep. He looked peaceful, elegant. Sleeping beauty. Soft lips parted ever so slightly, eyes closed delicately, soft cheeks and a calm expression. One hand shoved under his pillow and the other in his ambrosial burnt-caramel hair. His hair was a sight to behold. It might not be the finest smoothest texture, but it turned into a lighter caramel at the ends. It was stunning.

Minutes passed until Brian stirred, opening is eyes meekly, and smiling flusteredly at the two boys who ogled fondly at him.

“Why do your sheets smell so nice,,?” Toby babbled.

It took Brian a while to realize Toby had even spoken, and a while longer to understand what he said.

“Uh- oh, fabric softener sheets,” he grinned, pulling a white linen sheet out from under his pillow.

“Everything about you is heavenly, I love you,” Toby murmured, giggling.

“I try,” Brian shrugs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also: someone asked me why Toby isn't as energetic as the fandom portrays him to be and here the answer:  
> Being happy and energetic isn't a normal, healthy human responce to loss and trauma. And there is an aspect of ADHD within Tourettes, but that doesn't completely make up what Tourettes is, or how someone with the infliction would act constantly. As well as the fact that in his backstory thingy he isn't super energetic? He's a fuckin edgy kid and this story takes place after a fuck ton of therapy. I wanted him to be a more interesting (and tolerable) character with flaws and fears, and most importantly something I can accurately write.  
> Frankly I think I did a half decent job?? Like I wanna p r o t e c c-


	15. Roadtrip vibes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DO YOU KNOW HOW FUCKINH MUCH I LOVE KATE SHES MY FA VOURITE I LOVE H ER
> 
> Sup I return  
> Almost 5000 words because this took a while??  
> Can you tell I know about Oregon? I fucking love Oregon.

“Jane,” Toby put both hands on the younger girl’s shoulders. “I’m trusting you to take care of m-my cat while I’m gone. This is a big- ngk- responsibility but I trust you,” he said seriously.

“I… don’t even like cats.. and.. they’re not that hard to take care of,” she pushed him off, “Natalie likes cats a lot more than I do, and she’ll probably end up doing it entirely just because I have better shit to do with my time,”

“DON’T CALL ME THAT,” Clockwork yelled from the other room.

“CAT,”

“Cat?” Clockwork scampered over curiously.

“Toby somehow acquired a cat, and now that he’s going to be gone for, like, over a week, he wants me to take care of it,”

“Her,” he corrected.

“It. I don’t actually know how to take care of a cat,”

“WEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL,” she wrapped an arm around both of their backs, “I just happen to know how to take care of cats,” she paused to give each of them a mischievous glance, “As long as you accompany me,” she grinned at the black haired girl, “I will indeed, take care of said cat,”

Toby pulled out of her uncomfortable embrace, shuffling to the side, “Her name is Sasha-a and though I haven’t had h-her for very long, I love her d-dearly. If anything happens to her,” he glares at each girl, “I will s-see to it that the both of you are giv-ven the same fate,”

“Bro chill, I wouldn’t let anything happen to such a precious being,” she ran her hand through her long brown hair, “We won’t neglect her, promise,”

He sighed, turning to Jane, “Promise?”

She was, for a brief second, dumbfounded, she groaned, “Yea, promise, we’re not five, we’re not going to get your cat run over,”

“With the s-shit you two manage to pull, you’d get her run over, out here, in the middle of the f-fu-ucking woods,”

“Hey, we are a trouble trio, not a duo, you’re one-third responsible for setting that house on fire,”

“I thought we agreed never to talk about that,” Jane laughed.

“Had to bring it up,” Clockwork shrugged, “You’ve been spending too much time with your boyfriends,”

“T-They’re not my boyfriends!” his voice cracked.

“Speaking of which, where are they?” Jane looked around the room.

“Fresno? I-I think,”

“Why?” Jane asked, perplexed as to why they’d be that far out.

“Pre-road-trip thingy,” Toby shrugged.

“Can we see your cat?” Clockwork grinned.

“S-sure,”

“Where’d you find her?” she asked as she followed him, Jane trailing close behind.

 

.

 

“You’re afraid of cars?” Kate asks in disbelief.

“Y-yea,”

“He’s afraid of cars??” she turns to Tim, who nods.

“He’s afraid of cars,” he confirms.

“Why is he going on this roadtrip thingy then???”

“It’s his job,”

“Yea but if it’s his job then shouldn’t the-,” she stops herself, “You guys are cruel,”

“Hardly, he wanted to do this,” Tim rolled his eyes.

She turns to Toby, “Masochist,”

“Hey, you live out in the woods, and chase p-people for a hobby,” he defended.

“It’s not a hobby, it’s a duty, and living in the woods is fun, it’s like camping- only- like- all the time,” she corrected him.

“And honestly, if you think /I’m/ unfit for this, just look at yourself. Wild animals don’t belong in cars,”

“Neither do twitchy morons but here we both are,”

“You two, enough,” Brian sighed, “Put your shit in the back or on the floor board, we’re leaving at five-thirty, go get some sleep,”

Kate threw her head back as she groaned as she slammed the door behind her.

Toby wasn’t sure how he felt about Kate. She was, what seemed to be a last minute addition, though Tim and Brian had known for about a week. They had dreaded hiking out to Fresno, so they decided to buy the car a day early and pick her up.

Kate made Toby’s head spin, and not in a good way. She was a broody, distant, bitchy, teenager. Cynical and pessimistic. It didn’t help that she was 16 while Toby was (somehow) 19. He forgets about that often. He could only hope that she’d calm down and warm up, and he was pretty sure he’d crack her eventually.

Only time could tell, and right now time was telling him that if he didn’t get his ass up to bed, he’d regret it in the morning.

 

.

 

“So up I-5, then I-85 which turns up into I-15,”

“No, we should follow I-85 down to I-80,” Brian pointed.

“Why?”

“I don’t want to get lost in the middle of Wyoming,”

“Fine. Then in Pennsylvania we’ll go up 81, to 88, then to I-90,” Tim followed the lines on the map, highlighting them with a blue highlighter.

“Then we come back the way we came through Pennsylvania back onto I-80 and drive that back to California?”

“If we go I-95 we can intersect into I-80. That’s about the most straightforward route,”

Brian shrugged, “As long as we stick to interstates I think we’ll be fine,”

Kate sighed loudly, “I’ll be in the car,” she stomped, slamming the door behind her.

“Is there any chance she can,, I dunno,, not be a bitch?”

“Chill, she’ll loosen up, I’m sure,” Brian assured him. He turned to Toby, who patiently awaited instruction. “You ready?”

“I-I think,” he swallowed, summoning up all his courage, “Yea, yea, I can do this, just- mnm- keep your hands on the w-wheel and eyes on the road,” he nodded.

“That’s the spirit! Go on and get into the car, we’ll be right there,”

“O-okay,” Toby’s voice trembled as his smile faltered. He trotted out into the darkness. It was a 2 mile hike out to where the car was parked, and it wasn’t fun to walk it in the dark, but he heard Tim and Brian chattering not too far behind him and that calmed him down.

He reached the dark grey car. 2009 Chevy Tahoe. It looked like shit. Okay maybe not, but the design isn’t a sight for sore eyes.

Toby crawled in the back seat, feeling the cold black leather interior. He reached for the seatbelt, holding the cold metal in his clammy hands. He took a deep breath and pulled it over his lap, smiling as he heard it click. The air was crisp and cold, but he felt hot and sweaty. He glanced at Kate, who sat opposite of him, staring boredly out the window.

“Are you really going to wear that mask?” Toby chastised, grinning.

“Uh, yea,” she said confidently.

“Good luck with that,” he snickered nervously.

“So why are you so deathly afraid of cars?” she asked loudly.

“I-I was, uhm, hehe, I was i-in a car crash,”

“But that was a long time ago, no?”

“Uh, a little over f-four years, yea,” he swallowed dryly.

“That seems like an awful long time to not get over your fear,” she stated mockingly.

“Y-yea, well- I- I didn’t have the opportunity to get over it,”

“You always have the opportunity to get over it,”

The drivers side car door opened disrupting their horrid conversation, the passenger door opened soon after.

“God I’ve missed cars,” Tim sighed as he turned the key.

“Beats walking,” Brian shrugged, buckling himself in the passenger seat. “Ready for a roadtrip?” He turned to look at Toby and Kate.

Kate shrugged, grunting out a “meh,”

Toby nodded his head, “Let’s get this over with,”

.

The soft glow of the sun hiding under the horizon illuminated the edges of the sky as they pulled onto the interstate. The stars faded as the car drove north. They had pulled onto the interstate just before early morning rush, so it seemed like cars appeared out of thin air. Toby glanced at each car nervously before sighing, he wasn’t like this right after the crash, why was he like this now? He looked around the car in an attempt to distract himself.

“You know you can’t wear that mask from here on out, Kate,” Tim glanced in his rear view mirror.

Kate groaned, “Why not?”

“The sun is rising, people can see,” Brian chirped.

“No,” she protested.

“You don’t have a choice,”

“No!” she said firmly.

“Do you want to get us all killed?”

“Me wearing a mask in the car isn’t going to get us killed,” she barks.

“Take it off,”

She glared at the older boys for a good while before finally giving in, pulling it off, revealing a tired, angry teenaged girl. She had a bruise above her left cheekbone and a scrape to the right of her chin. Her chestnut brown eyebrows furrowed in frustration. She pouted, arms crossed, glaring out her window.

“Thank you,” Tim said monotonously.

“Whatever,” she spat.

.

Two hours of on and off talking led them off the interstate and in a Walmart parking lot.

“Why are we here??” Kate asked as they walked to the front doors.

“Music, phones, snacks,” Brian listed.

“Phones?” Kate asked skeptically.

“Burner phones, just in case,”

“Mn,” she murmured.

Brian went towards the electronics, and Toby and Kate followed Tim over to the misc. section. Two displays full of CDs.

“Pick out two, each of you,” the dark haired boy instructed.

Kate dug through, pulling out a Linkin Park CD and a Runaways CD. Toby picked out Imagine Dragons and Fall Out Boy. Tim picked four, explaining he was getting two for Brian and two for him, but Kate was pretty sure he was getting them for himself. X Ambassadors, Panic! At The Disco, Mumford and Sons, and The Heart And The Head. They scuttled through the isles of food, choosing the cheapest essentials. Granola bars, apples, wheat thins, fruit roll ups, and a box of cereal. Healthy..

They met up at the checkout and paid for their items, heading back to the car.

“Fuck,” Kate cursed.

“I hate this, the new Tahoes look just like the Suburbans but these old Tahoes just look like shit,”

“You noticed that too?” Tim snickered.

“Yea and it’s pissing me off,”

“Buckle up,” he laughed.

.

Toby stared out the window, watching the long familiar landscape rush by. The radio was on some random station with no songs he’d ever heard. He glanced over the Kate, who had her nose in a book.

Brian and Tim chatted up front, but Toby wasn’t listening. He sighed, road trips are a lot more boring than he remembered..

Kate’s eyes flickered to Toby, then back to her book, she snickered at his bored pouty look, arms crossed over his chest and everything.

He scrunched up his nose at her, “Ngh, what are you reading?”

“Life as we knew it,”

“I know that book!”

“You do?” she recoiled, genuinely surprised.

“Y-yea, it’s a really good book!”

“I guess, seems a little boring,” she lied, shrugging.

.

Hours passed and the barren desert landscape of California turned into a lush green landscape.

Eventually pulling off the interstate, they were met with quaint beach towns. Houses on beaches, houses tucked under trees, towns hidden within forest. The sky was a constant grey, and there was an ominous breeze. The smell of salt and dirty water thick in the air.

..

The sun set, not that anyone really noticed. They drove town through town, and eventually found themselves at the industrial edge of a town. The car headlights and the distant glow of a rundown apartment duplex were the only sources of light. They pulled to the side of the road and turned off the car.

The four sat in a shared, tired silence before Brian opened his door, Tim soon doing the same. Tim slammed his door and walked to the back of the car, opening the back, shuffling with the bags briefly before closing it. He and Brian mumbled distantly while Kate and Toby were left staring at their shoes in a tired haze.

Kate’s door opened. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” she excitedly pulled on her mask and jumped out of the car, “Toby,” Masky caught his attention, “Stay here, we’ll only be a few minutes. If we take more than 30, come check on us. The car is off, the lights will be off, the doors will be locked. Don’t draw any attention,”

“Mnhm,” Toby nodded his head firmly.

With that, the door shut and the three walked towards the apartment duplex.

Toby sighed as the inner car lights faded out. He looked out the windows at his surroundings. A crumbled side walk on the side of the road the car was parked on led to the apartment duplex, where there were a few streetlights that led (supposedly) into town.

Minutes passed tantalizingly slow, and the faint pitter-patter of light rain tapped on the windshield.

He saw the three emerge with a mangled clump of something in tow, and an old, beat up van pulled up next to the chain link fence that surrounded a factory, adjacent the car. The three made their way to the van, exchanging the clump for money. The van drove off and the three stood, watching it drive off into the night. Only after the van was out of sight did they advance across the street, each collectively climbing into the car.

It was weird to think that clump had been a person. A now dead one. One that probably had a job, a life, and just happened to poke their nose in something they shouldn’t have. Who knows where their body would be going.

Toby wondered if their mother would cry when she didn’t get a call from her beloved child, or if the mother had forgotten of her child’s existence.

He settled on the thought that the clump was scum of the earth, who was left orphaned and uncaring. That probably wasn’t the case, and that didn’t really phase him.

They drove off without a word, driving through the dark town. 45 minutes passed before they pulled into a parking lot. A seaside motel, the yellow light of a front office shone brightly.

“Wait here,” Tim mumbled as he exited the car, walking into the front office. He returned 5 minutes later, “Get your stuff out of the back, let’s go to bed,”

The next 10 minutes flew by, pulling their bags into the motel room. They flicked on the lights, dragged their bags into corners and sighed. Standard motel set up, kitchenet by the door, big window on the other side of the room that faced the inky black ocean, bathroom by the door, two beds, an entertainment system and a couch. The entertainment system faced the beds, but the couch sat up against the large window. A stupid design.

Kate flopped onto the couch, dropping her duffel bag on the floor beside it. She lay there for a good minute before pulling a blanket and pillow out of the bag. She also pulled out bed clothes. An oversized grey shirt with a school logo on it and light purple, blue, and cream stripped pajama pants.

Toby didn’t really know why he focused so closely on her, but he did. He unlaced his boots, slipping them off beside the second bed. He stood and assessed his situation. He didn’t want to wear these clothes any longer. He pulled a loose t-shirt and dark grey sweatpants out of his bag, pulling off his zip-up jacket and peeling off his raggedy cream coloured shirt, pulling the loose t-shirt over his body felt nice. The material was soft and cool and felt fresh. He pulled off his denim jeans and basked in the comfortability of sweatpants as he tied the drawstring loosely. He pulled black ankle socks out of his bag and slipped them on.

He turned his attention back to Kate as he absentmindedly pulled himself under the covers of the bed.

Kate pulled off her shirt as she stared out into the inky blackness. She pulled at the strap of her black sports bra before pulling on her static grey sleep shirt. She pulled off her black skinny jeans, replacing them with much looser fitting pajama pants. In one fluid motion she pulled her long hair into a messy knot and settled in on the couch.

He turned to see Tim and Brian settling on the first bed. Brian turned to Toby and smiled, “G’night,”

“N-night,” his voice cracked. The lights were turned off and they all collectively laid there, pretending everyone else in the room was already asleep.

Toby turned to the window and shut his eyes, unable to drift off into anything more than a shallow nap.

 

.

 

“Ambiguous,” Toby broke the silence.

“What?” Brian’s tired voice was laced with confusion as he turned to look at Toby.

They both looked like they hadn’t slept in days, and that wasn’t an astute observation. The distant sound of the ocean hitting the shore muffled with the rain. Toby stared off distantly, unable to really focus on much.

“This place,” he motioned ever so slightly with his head, “The weather,”

Brian still didn’t understand.

“It’s all so-,” he jerked his head, “Grey,” his tired dark eyes met Brian’s, “The rain is soft, the temperature isn’t really cold, the wind isn’t rough, it’s not violent, but i-it’s also not-,” he swallowed, “Calm,”

Brian’s gaze fell to the concrete steps they sat on, to the off-white walkway that reached to a distant, almost empty parking lot, and to the sidewalk.

“It’s not nothing,” Toby’s eyes shifted around, “But it’s not something,”

“Mundane,”

The rain slid off the roof of the building they sat in front of, dripping onto the walkway and into the grass. The small seaside town they currently resided in wasn’t broken down, or abandoned, it just wasn’t very flashy or new looking.

“This stupid sleepy aimless no name rainy run-down town is just so,” his voice coloured with anguish, “Melancholy,” he broke, furrowing his brows.

“That’s spring time in Oregon, hun,”

“Why is the sky so grey?” his voice cracked.

“It’s by the ocean,” Brian echoed.

They fell silent.

“Where are we going next?”

“Nebraska,” he started, “Probably stop in Utah, or the edge of Wyoming,”

Toby smiled as his eye caught onto a soaking wet Tim walking the sidewalk up to where they sat.

“It started raining,” Tim handed the plastic bag in his hand to Brian.

“We can see,” Brian said amusedly, standing up and following Tim inside.

Toby rolled his eyes, following along.

“What’d you get?” Brian looked at the soaked boy as he stumbled off towards the bathroom.

“Take a look; I’m going to take a shower,”

Brian giggled, “Good idea,” he turned his attention to the bag, pulling it open, “Don’t use all the hot water,”

“No promises,” the door shut.

Brian dumped out the contents onto the bed. Cheese and bags of beef jerky and those jerky stick things, all labeled `Tillamook`, a can of almonds, a bag of strange looking apple slices and a bag of cheese Ritz bitz. He sighed.

Toby gasped happily, grabbing the bag of teriyaki flavoured beef jerky. “I love this shit,”

“Are these even apple slices?” Brian inspected.

“Probably not?”

“Fuck it, I’m hungry,” he tore the bag open. “They taste like rubbing alcohol,” his face scrunched up, he wanted to spit it out, but he swallowed it and threw the bag aside.

“Ew,”

“I don’t know what I was expecting,”

“Me neither,” Toby snickered, munching on teriyaki flavoured heaven. “Are we actually in Tillamook?”

“No, we’re in Coos county,”

“Oh, is Tillamook a town or a county?”

“Yes,”

“W-what?” his nose scrunched in confusion, Brian bit back laughter.

“It’s both,”

“That’s weird,”

“Yea,”

“When it stops raining do you think we could go to the beach?”

“Probably, though it wouldn’t be very warm,”

“Eh, doesn’t need to be,”

“You’re an absolute madman,”

Toby snickered, scrunching up his nose, “You know it,”

.

“How did we get here?” Tim looked around.

“Did you space out that entire thirty minute walk?” Brian snickered.

“It’s a long damn beach,”

“It’s fucking cold too,”

“And grey,” Kate added monotonously, staring distantly towards the ocean.

“Toby get out of the water!” Brian yelled.

“It isn’t even c-cold!” he shouted as he ran farther out.

“I’m not getting him,” Tim watched as the short boy ran towards the ocean.

“Like hell you ain’t,” Brian grabbed the shorter boy by the arm and dragged him out after Toby.

It soon became a game of cat and mouse, the two older boys chasing the half soaking wet boy through the waves, yelling at him whenever he got any deeper in the water.

It was all fun and games until the brunet decided it was a wise idea to start splashing Tim. The splashing soon turned into him shoving the poor boy into the cool water.

Yells of agony, giggles, shrieks, and the sound of the splashing water rung throughout. Kate snickered at the entirety of this situation.

Toby jumped into the soaking wet arms of the taller boy and the two twirled around in the shallow water. Brian glanced over to Kate before returning his gaze to the two shorter boys, spinning around and bumping noses. He kicked water at the two and they chased after him.

Kate watched observantly, noting each of the boy’s personalities and their overall dynamic.

Eventually the clouds grow darker and light rain begins to patter down upon the small town. The four of them make a mad dash up the beach, stumbling and tripping in the dryer sand up close to the town. They argue about who gets to shower first and Toby wins, granting him the first shower. Next is Tim, then Brian.

“That’s not fair,” Brian pleads.

“You are the driest,” Tim reasons as Toby slams the bathroom door shut, leaving no room for arguing.

“IIIIIIIIIIII’m gonna go check out the vending machine,” Kate backs out, shutting the motel room door behind her.

Brian groans, “I don’t enjoy being in soaking wet clothes,”

“Then take them off,” the charcoal haired boy says flatly, looking through his bag of clothes.

Brian snorted, “What?”

“Take, them, off,” he pauses between each word as if Brian needed time to comprehend his words.

“Sinful,”

“Chicken,”

“We’re not having sex in this motel room while we’re drenched in salt water,”

Tim shrugs, “Your loss,”

Brian cracks a smile, “I hate you,” he shook his head, giggling.

Tim smiles, “Love you too, honey,”

.

Toby wandered to the couch, plopping himself down and pulling off his shoes. He rubbed his sock clad feet on the carpeted floor.

“I hate motels,”

“Eh, they’ve got charm,” Brian shrugged.

“N-not really, they’re just smelly,” he looked over to Brian, who smiled at the shorter boy. He returned the smile before looking at the unkempt beds. “Am I sleeping with you tonight?”

“If you want,” Brian shrugged, “I don’t mind either way,”

Toby sighed out of boredom, pulling himself off the couch, he meandered to the entertainment system, looking it over. “Dude, they have a VHS player,” he looked at the shelf, “Dude they have Balto on VHS,”

“You didn’t notice that earlier?”

“I was a-asleep earlier,”

“No, you were too busy paying attention to the beach and chasing Tim in the water,”

“He looked too pretty,” he shook his head.

“How can someone look `too pretty`?”

“I dunno,” Toby mumbled, “B-but you know I’m right,”

“Noooope,” Brian snickered, sitting on the closer bed. “His hair looked so nice and neat and you ruined it,”

“Too pretty,” Toby shook his head, skipping over to the taller boy. “Have you ever been here before?” his voice sounded distant, a tone change from just a moment ago.

“I’ve been to beaches in Oregon, yes. Not this town specifically,”

Toby hesitated, only for a moment before sitting on Brian’s lap, both legs on the other side of his lap. “When did you come here?”

“I think I was around 12? Then again when I was 15. Family vacations, I recall,” he shrugged, wrapping his arms around the younger boy’s waist. He nuzzled into the sullen boy’s cheek. “You alright?”

“Mnhm, just t-IRed I guess,” he clears his throat.

“Nothin’ you wanna talk about?”

“Mnmn,” he shakes his head slightly. They fall silent. “Why are we staying here another night? I thought we were going to leave this morning,”

“We overslept, thought `fuck it, let’s stay here`,”

“Mn,”

The tawny haired boy kissed Toby’s jaw, “Anything in particular that’d make this experience more tolerable?”

“I- uh, more.. moments- er- days- er whatever- like this. This is the stuff that makes memories I’d want to look back on,”

“We’re getting up real early tomorrow, you can go back to sleep in the car if you want. Uneventful driving all day,” Brian says softly, nuzzling the younger boy’s neck.

“I’m sorry you and Tim have to be t-tired and stressed all throughout this trip and I get off scott free like I’m yo-ur kid,” Toby blurts distantly.

“W-what?” he recoils.

“I’m so.. una-a-aware of all the numbers, and sleep deprivation, and hard work, and all that stuff. You gu-uys have to deal with all of that stress,” he cracks his knuckles, “Uh, thank you. Like, really, your hard work doesn’t go unappreciated,” he smiles embarrassedly.

“O-oh, thank you, Toby,” Brian beams, “That’s.. that’s real sweet,” he kisses the boy’s cheek, “You’re gonna have to really tell that to Tim, he’s all sorts of stressed out over this,”

“I will,” he echoes.

The two fall silent again. “..Do you feel.. guilty? About not being stressed?”

“I-I feel guilty for-“ he swallows, “For being so naïve a-a-and ignorant. I act like a child, and you guys never signed up for that,”

“We’ve been shielding you from the stress, honey. We don’t want you to worry about things you never really got the chance to understand. We can handle it. You don’t need to feel guilty for anything,” he cups the curly haired boy’s cheek.

Toby’s dark eyes scower Brian’s blue green eyes for a hint of him lying, but he doesn’t find any. He bites his lip, furrowing his brows as he leans into Brian’s hand. He avoids the older boy’s eyes, looking everywhere else.

“Don’t ever feel guilty about something like that, sweetheart. We’d involve you if we wanted you to be involved,”

“Ngh,” he swallows.

“Look at me, Toby,”

His eyes flicker back up to Brian’s shyly. Soft strawberry lips meet Toby’s chapped ones, he wraps his arms around Brian’s neck. It seems to last forever and he swore he got a sneak peek of heaven. They finally break away and Toby’s eyes flutter as he stares back at the taller boy.

“I-I- uh-“ Toby’s ears and cheeks dust with pink.

“I forget how nice kissing you is,” he purrs, smiling.

The bathroom door opens.

“Go take a shower,” Toby snickers, covering his face with his hand.

.

“Mn,”

“Y-yea and-”

“Dude,” Tim interrupted, “Let’s get some sleep,”

“Nggghhhh I don’t want to sleep when I could be talking to you,”

He smiled bashfully, “We will be in a car all day tomorrow, you can talk to me then,”

“Yea but then we aren’t laying on a bed together,”

“Too bad,”

“Meanie,”

“Whatever, I’m gonna go get Kate,” he pulled himself off the bed, “I’ll be back in a minute. Get ready for bed,” he snickered, closing the door behind him.

 

 

 

_“Just talk to me, dude, I don’t bite,”_

_“Well i-it’s just that,” Toby swallows nervously, “I just- I- I like you, a lot, and it’s okay if you don’t like me back a-and I’d still want to be friends but I-I’ve kind of had a crush on you for a while- l-like almost a year. I just can’t go on like this forever, I had t-to tell you, I-I’m sorry,”_

_Tim blinked, dumbfounded. “I.. wow, uhm, shit,”_

_“Y-yea… sorry,”_

_“Don’t be, I don’t think I’d be able to tell you that in a better way,” he laughed tensely, “I lik- oh what the hell is this? Elementary school? Sounds creepy but I’ve had a bit of a crush on you for a while,”_

_“L-like, for real?”_

_“..Yea..” he rubbed the back of his neck timidly._

_Toby acted on impulse, leaning over the taller boy as their lips met._

_The door shut and both of them pulled away rather frantically._

_“Holy hell,” Brian mumbled, staring at the two._

_“I- uh, eheheh- we um,” Toby stumbled over his words._

_“Oops..?” Tim gave a flustered smile._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just got back from my homeschool graduation and I was reminded of why I wanted to shoot up a school.  
> Summer starts this friday and I fly out to Virginia next friday??  
> I'm a busy bee but I should upload at least once before the 4th of july.  
> Follow my instagram if you wanna. @ruby_rudd  
> Don't forget to comment; I need validation.


	16. Nebraska

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hun, y-you don’t have a lumb-berjack vibe- like at all,”
> 
> “I know,” Brian said, half feigning a glum tone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I caught the Big Gay and couldn't upload for over a month.  
> no okay in actuality:  
> I FUCKIN FORGOT MY LAPTOP CHARGER AND COULDN'T WRITE FOR 3 FUCKGIN WEEKS I'M SO SORRY
> 
> ON ANOTHER NOTE: I'M HALF DONE WITH ANOTHER CHAPTER ALREADY SO I SHOULD BE BACK TO WEEKLY UPDATES DKFJSKLFDJSDF
> 
>  
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: R*T*RD SLUR  
> it's near the beginning, feel free to skip if it makes you uncomfortable. Kate has nothing against autistics etc. she uses it in the original meaning of the word, not the autism hating slur.

_The cold room spun as he assumed the fetal position on the smooth, frigid concreate. His body pulsated between hot and cold as his frame twitched. His heart beat like a race horse as the brunet breathed in and out as deeply as he could, but he still felt as if he were suffocating. His eyes closed tightly as he lay there helplessly. He tasted the bitter flavour of iron and knew he was bleeding, but couldn’t seem to remember why._

_Then everything stopped. No feeling, no sound, no light behind his eyelids. Nothing. He felt nothing. He opened his eyes and sat up. There was nothing around him but trees, but not trees in Rosswood. No redwood trees, no pine trees, no aspen. Tall, unforgiving, evergreen took their place. It was almost impossible to distinguish the trees without colour besides black, white, and various shades of grey. The trees stood coldly, like uncaring gods. Forest gods. Everything felt numb, his ears rung in the silence, but then the taste of iron and the feeling of warm, sticky blood oozed out of his nose and the ringing got louder. Everything he saw faded into the darkness and the static ringing turned into a shrieking and then he opened his eyes._

Kate stared at her book in the seat beside him, Brian alternated between looking down at the map sitting in his lap, and out the window, Tim drove, glancing in the rear-view mirror occasionally. The warmth of the pale sun shone through the tinted window his head leaned on. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, yawning. He ran his hand from the soft pale skin of his cheek to his messy brunet hair. He observed the outside as it passed the window 15 miles above the speed limit. Mountains. Horribly high mountain peaks covered with white and grey. The road curved around hills and mountains as they drove through what Toby deducted to be the Rockies.

He wracked his brain as to how he ended up in the car until the inkling of a soggy memory hit him. Waking up before dawn and crawling into the warmth of the car, where he buckled himself up and fell asleep.

Between the detachment to reality and the sleep deprivation, Toby slipped back into a comatose state to the lullaby of the road he originally feared.

 

* * *

 

Agricultural towns just out of reach. He watched as farms passed by, sun high in the sky. The rolling hills and flat plains of Wyoming soothed him. The horizon looked so soft.

“God, we are so detached from everything,” Kate muttered to no one in particular.

“What makes you say t-that?” Toby turned to the teen.

“Panic! has a new album coming out, Obama is no longer president, and I’m not 12 anymore,”

“Panic has new music?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty good, apparently,”

“Where’d you hear all that from?”

“Jane told me,” she shrugged.

There was a moment of silence, “Ho-w is it surprising t-that you’re not 12?”

“Eh, I don’t really remember anything after that,”

“That seems to b-e a common theme,”

“Yeah,” she chuckled, “I guess it is,”

“Is it bad that I-I miss my bed already?”

“I dunno, man,” Kate looks up from her book, her hazel eyes meeting his dark grey ones.

“Are you gonna stay with us after this trip is over?”

“I want to say `I hope not` but it beats sleeping on concreate, so I might,”

“Yeah, beds a-are nice,”

“Better than the ground,” she snickered, shrugging and turning back to her book. “I like your eyes,”

“,,Thanks,”

* * *

Bored of the quiet, he decided to strike up a conversation with the moody teen sitting beside him.

“So.. how’d you end up in this whole mess?”

She tore away from the window, bewildered. “What?” her voice was stiff.

“L-like the whole- uh- proxy deal-io,”

She blinked at him, mad and unsure what to say. She looked at him like he were a piece of meat, but Toby couldn’t back down now. “I mean, I went berserk, after the car cr-a-ash, fuckin stabbed my dad and set my h-house on fire,” he tried to make light of the topic, hoping that she’d open up if he did.

“Don’t ever ask me that again, retard,” she spit, turning back to glare out the window.

He winced at how that conversation went.

How was he ever going to get her to settle and open up if he pulled stunts like that?

* * *

“You still r-reading that book?”

“Yeah, why?” she said almost defensively

“Just curious,” he shrugged, “Always put me i-in a solemn `the world is e-ending and all my friends aRE dying` mood,”

“Huh,”

“Is that weird??”

“Not really?” she grinned confusedly, forgetting about being mad at him, “Books- and movies- even songs- have done that to me before,”

“What s-songs??”

“..Welcome To The Black Parade..” she bit her lip, smiling wider in embarrassment.

He grinned, “Filthy emo,” he teased.

“It’s so dark and broody! It gets me every time!” she exclaimed.

He twitched, “Cancer always did that for me,” he admits.

“Have you heard Twenty-One Pilots’ cover for it??”

“W-who’s Twenty-One Pilots ??”

“Oh my gooood, I lived in forests and abandoned warehouses and was still more in touch with shit than you!” she laughs. “Their cover is sadder, the singer, Tyler Joseph, sounds less like he’s still fighting and more like he’s given up. It really hits you,”

“Guess I’m gonna have t-to listen to it at s-some point,”

“Oh of course, I won’t let you get away with not listening to it,” she says blankly, half joking.

“It’s a cult I’m never going to escape, apparently,”

“Yes, exactly. You can never detox the emo out of your soul,”

“Once it’s in there, it’s there forever,” he added, snickering.

“Like a baby,”

“Unless y-you kill it,”

“Oh yeah, so then like an STD,” she giggled.

“Something like that,”

* * *

The sun lowered as fields of livestock, oil, and grain turned to fields of corn, grain, and livestock (big difference, woooowwww). Interstate roads turned into avenues that turned into quaint roads that turned into dirt.

A small cluster of houses, each with dozens of acres of land behind them lie at the end of the country road. They pull over and park just before the road branches out towards each house. Fences surround fields of cattle and grain. The sun has said its goodbyes and gone off to bed as the plan is explained.

Someone with too much information, blah blah blah collected a select few people who have too much information, blah blah, plotting with information, blah. 4 should be gathered in the basement at this moment, 3 more scattered across town. Take them all out tonight.

Sneaking into houses, kicking the shit out of sweaty single men in their late 30s, taking flash drives, wiping computers. Nothing new. What was new was loading the bodies into the back of the car and driving 5 miles out to meet a truck with cash.

Toby still hadn’t figured out how all this stuff worked, and he didn’t really want to know. It seemed more spontaneous and magical this way. It’s weird to see stacks of cash.

 

They drove miscellaneously across town, following the same basic routine and eventually pulling into a decrepit Big Lots parking lot. Under the cloak of darkness bodies and money were exchanged to the sound of bugs chirping and buzzing in the nearby grass. Orange street lamps reminded Toby of harsh memories. He stood lead-limbed as he watched the mysterious car’s lights drive off. He pulled himself into the car and dozed off.

He was shaken back into a (barely) conscious state. They all tiredly shuffled into the hotel rooms. Two separate rooms with a door to connect them. Two beds in each.

No thought was put into which bed he crawled into or who he’d share a room with. They kept the connecting door open, so it seemed less divided.

Brian had to coax Toby out of the clothes he was in and into pajamas. After sleepily pulling off and on certain pieces of cloth he crawled into bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

.

He awoke to the sun beaming in through the part of the window not hidden by the curtains. The light felt warm against his skin and he stretched under the warmth of a white comforter. All was still and quiet as he yawned, rubbing the sleep out of his dark eyes. Once he had pulled himself out of sleep enough to move freely, he scouted his surroundings.

The sounds of soft snoring in the other room. The walls were cream, with a smooth drywall texture, matted close knit carpet that was an ugly dark turquoise with ugly dark purple mixed in, expensive looking furniture, a microwave on top of the dresser, a closet without a door, and a sliding glass door that led out to a balcony. He noticed no body in the bed adjacent to the one he lay in. The sheets of the bed had hardly been touched. This was odd compared to the rest of this trip’s hotel/motel mannerisms, though normally this would be a regular occurrence.

He ran his hand over the dry skin of his elbow, then moving up to rest his hand on his shoulder. He shifted his position partly and adjusted the comforter. In a surprise double coordination, a mostly sleeping body leaned up against his. An arm lazily wrapped around his middle, face nuzzling into the back of his neck and his messy hair.

Toby melted into the embrace, almost dipping back into sleep before he felt the hand find its coordination. It inched up his body, careful fingers pulling the brunet’s curls behind his ear. The hand returned back to his middle as his neck was nuzzled again.

“ ’Morning,” Brian’s tired voice whispered softly.

“G’morning,” Toby smiled.

“How’d you sleep?” Brian kissed the back of the brunet’s head.

“Mm, y-you?”

“Fine,”

Toby rolled over to face the taller boy, wrapping one arm around his waist and the other grasped at his night shirt. Brian kissed the shorter boy’s forehead.

“Damn,” Toby reached his hand up to run it above Brian’s jaw. “You need a shave,”

“Aw c’mon,” he laughed, “And you never tell Tim that,”

“He looks n-nice scruffy,” he defended.

“And I don’t?”

“I-,” he paused, “I-I’m not used to it,”

“Eh, my hair’s lighter anyway, not like it’ll be a landmark visible from space,” he teased.

Toby snickered. “I think it c-could work,”

“Oh, I know it’ll work, not like I haven’t done it before,”

“Yeah, but Tim’s al-always scruffier than you,”

“We’ve gone back and forth,” he shrugged. “He’s got more of a lumberjack vibe so it works well for him,”

“Hun, y-you don’t have a lumb-berjack vibe- like at all,”

“I know,” Brian said, half feigning a glum tone.

They both laughed.

“We should get up now,”

“Noooooo, I-I wanna stay in be- stay in bed with you a-all morning,” Toby pouted.

“Too bad, I’m getting up,” Brian pulled Toby off him and yanked himself out of bed.

 

* * *

 

 

“So, what are we gonna do today?” Kate asked, pulling her brown hair up into a knot.

“We were planning on staying here for the day,” Brian looked at the teen before turning back to pour coffee.

“I do NOT want to chill in a hotel all day,”

“Then go outside,”

“This is Nebraska. There’s nothing out there,” she protested.

“I don’t want to sit in a car all day, I’m still tired from yesterday,”

Kate gasped, “We could go to Chicago!”

“No,” the three boys said in unison.

“Uggghhhhh,”

“That’s how I feel,” Brian laughed.

“Whe- where are we going next?” Toby asked.

“South Dakota,” Tim mumbled, still laying in bed.

“That’s right above us, we can go there,” Kate suggested.

“That wouldn’t be any more interesting,” Brian exposed.

“Mount Rushmore,” Kate grinned.

“No,” Brian said firmly. “It’s around a four and a half hour drive to get to where we need to be in South Dakota,” he bit his lip, “I’d be willing to go later in the day, but we’d still be in the middle of nowhere,”

“That’s a lie,” Tim mumbled. “We’ll be in the state capitol,”

“Have you ever seen it?”

“No,”

“It’s less than a city, hun,”

“It’s got a McDonalds play place,”

“Hun,” Brian reasoned.

“And an indoor pool,”

Kate and Toby were sold. Brian was less than pleased. They got their things together and ate a quick hotel breakfast before pulling themselves back on the road.

They played the CDs they’d bought for about the 9th time and without any discussion, Brian pulled into a Target parking lot.

“Please, go get new music,” Brian pleaded. “I can’t listen to Mumford and Sons for the umpteenth time this week,”

“Only if you g-go in with us~” Toby sang, grinning.

With a huff, they pulled Brian into the store and they scoured the store for CDs. They’d lost Kate, things were looking grim, they were about ready to give up, then they heard Kate yell for them.

“Guys, over here,” she waved them down a few isles.

A rack of various CDs lazily sat next to the clothing section. Kate held a bag of chips and 2 CDs in her hands.

“We don’t need chips,” Tim stated.

“Yes, we do, they’re dill pickle,”

“You truly are Satan’s child,” Brian sighed.

“Hey fuck you, you like them too,”

“Don’t expose me like this,” Brian laughed.

“If she’s getting ch-chips I’m getting something, t-too,”

“Agh, Toby, no-,”

The short boy ran off and the rest begrudgingly followed.

He returned from the isle the 3 had reached with a box of cereal.

“Really?” Tim eyed the box amusedly.

“Apple Jacks, they’re damn good,”

“Go put it back,” Brian sighed.

“No!” Toby giggled. “I’ll pay for them,” he smirked.

“With what money?”

“The money,” he pulled the cash out of his pocket, “That I found,”

They walked towards the checkout.

“And where’d you find it?” Brian asked skeptically.

“Under the bed in our hotel,” he skipped to the check stand.

Brian turned to Tim for backup. The dark haired boy failed at holding back a grin, “Can’t argue with that,” he shrugged.

 

Back on the road they were, listening to new music, thankfully. They crunched on snacks as they sung alone. They leisurely played road games and told funny stories.

To everyone’s pleasure, the ride didn’t seem that long. The sun was no longer high in the sky, but it was still there!

Toby and Kate chatted as Brian and Tim debated when they were going to carry out the job.

“Dusk tomorrow,” Tim said, looking to Brian for conformation.

The light haired boy pondered for a moment. “I think that would work,” he pulled into the hotel parking lot.

As they parked, Toby and Kate ogled over the fact that they were staying at a proper HOTEL, rather than a motel. They got out to grab their belongings while Brian held Tim in his seat.

“Massachusetts is next. I was thinking we could head down to DC,” he glanced to make sure Kate and Toby couldn’t hear.

“Why?” Tim asked, surprised.

“Natural history museum,”

“Why would we go there?”

“Because we have an entire extra week and a half if we go back to Cali right after we’re done in Massachusetts. Frankly, I want to spend all the time away from there as possible. Let’s take Toby and Kate to see something other than death for once. Plus, I think they still need a little time,”

“Time?”

“Toby has been getting Kate to open up. If not, I don’t think we could get her to open up to us. We need that, we have to work together,” Brian explained. “Let them get close enough that she feels at home, otherwise, she’ll open up to Jane and Clockwork and that would be about it. We need this. She needs this. He needs this,”

Tim thought about it. “Yeah, I think we’ve got the cash for it,” he said with a begrudging undertone.

“We fuckin better, we got four thousand for that last body,” The two older boys pulled themselves out of the car and retrieved their belongings.

“Can we go swimming tonight?” Kate asked.

“The suns still out,” Brian said, “It’s not like we have anything better to do,” he winked at her and she grinned.

* * *

Toby and Kate giddily ran to their hotel room and dug through their bags for their swim clothes. They practically bounced like children in anticipation as Brian and Tim took their sweet time getting to the room and putting their things down.

“Come oooonnnn, h-hurry up!!” Toby pouted at the older boys.

“You guys can go without us,” Brian snickered. “You’re not seven and we’re not your parents,”

“Yeaahh, bu-but we’re a Family. We’ve gotta go Together,”

“And hold hands while we cross the street, uh huh,” Tim joked, digging through his bag.

“Yeah, b-basically,” Toby rolled his eyes. He and Kate sat around impatiently.

After minutes of waiting, Kate finally coerced Toby into going to the pool with her.

“We’ll be down in a minute!” Brian yelled as the door shut.

 

Toby and Kate opted for the stair well, rather than the elevator. They dashed down the cement stairs to the back hallway where the pool was located. Their eyes gleamed as they darted towards the water. No lifeguard, no cameras, no rules. Kate dived into the deep, warm water, while Toby yelled for her to get out of the way. He did a front flip and landed in a cannonball. He swam up to the surface and splashed water at her playfully.

This resulted in an all-out war. Toby regret egging the teenager on as she splashed him relentlessly. He bobbed under the water and swam away in hopes of avoiding her, but as soon as he popped up for air, he was bombarded with water in his face. He surrendered, yelling and screaming and laughing echoed through the humid, high ceilinged room.

Unbeknownst to the two, Tim and Brian giggled at them from the other side of the glass door before entering. Kate and Toby yelled at the older boys to hurry up and join them.

Soon enough, they were all laughing and screaming and splashing and swimming. They got all their energy out, eventually swimming peacefully, making light hearted conversation. Kate kicked off the wall from underwater and bobbed up for air.

“I like the water more than I like people,” she laughed.

“No one wa-wants to hear about y- about your water fetish,” Toby joked.

Kate splashed water at him as they laughed. “Shut up, asshole,” she laughed. She rolled onto her back and floated leisurely.

“I used to be on swim team in high school,” Brian piped up.

“You? Really?” Kate rolled onto her stomach, re-submerging her lower half as she turned to look at him.

“Yeah,” he smiled his little endearing flustered smile, “I didn’t win tournaments or anything, but I was pretty good at it,” he shrugged.

“I’d have killed to swim every day after school,” Kate exclaimed. She looked to Tim and Toby, “What did you guys do in high school?”

“Uh,” Tim grinned uneasily, “Nothing really. I got the hang of softball, but I dropped that real quick,” he explained. “I didn’t really go to high school,”

“Lucky,” she snorted, ignorant to the unlucky reality of that part of his life. “What about you?” she looked at Toby.

“I, uh,” he paused. “I got caught u-up in this stuff when I was fifteen, and ev-even before that I was p- I was pretty unpopular a-and er- fucked up,” he shrugged. “I was h-homeschooled,” he started.

“Lucky,” Kate interrupted.

“Eheh, not really,” he scrunched up his nose, “But I was able to do a-after school a-activities at the nearby high sch- high school. I did-dn’t do any-anything, though,” he shrugged. “I did p-play baseball when I was lit-little, though,” he shrugged.

“Ah. I didn’t even get to go to high school,” she grinned (or grimaced). “I was fourteen,” she shrugged.

They all put two and two together.

“Well, w-what did you Want t-to do?” Toby asked.

“Uh,” she smiled embarrassedly, “Volleyball?”

“THOT,” he yelled and she splashed water as him. They all giggled.

“Brian did volleyball in college,” Tim snorted.

Brian gasped, splashing water at the dark haired boy, “DON’T EXPoSE ME LIKE THAT,” Brian’s voice cracked.

They all laughed.

“IT WAS ONE SEMESTER,” he pouted.

“Yeah, half a year,”

“Why must you emBARRASS ME LiKE THAT??” Brian squealed.

“Toby said we’re a family, I’m acting like what I understand to be family behaviours,” he explained, grinning.

“No, my parents just like embarrassing me, normal families aren’t like this,” Brian huffed.

“I call bullshit,” Kate exclaimed. “This is EXACTLY what families are like!”

They all giggled and splashed Brian.

“You guys are mean,” Brian pouted before they all returned back to swimming and splashing.

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s funny,” Kate started as she stared blankly at Toby as he pulled out pajamas from his bag laying beside the bed. “I’ve never spent this much time around guys in such an intimate way,” she paused, “A casual, non-sexual way, I mean,”

“Yeah I get what you’re s-saying,”

“Guys are a lot different than girls,” she pushed a lock of chestnut hair behind her ear. “Not just in personality or physical characteristics. The colour schemes of your clothes are different, more murky, less flashy. You think and worry about different things, and your friendships are built off different things than mine were,”

“Huh,”

“Yeah,”

“You should get ready for bed,” he said as he slipped his night shirt on.

“Yeah, yeah,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've lost all my following because I'm inconsistent af and I deserve it tbh
> 
> Love y'all
> 
> don't forget to comment   
> y'all make my day big time   
> more unholy gay shenanigans in the near future <3
> 
> insta: @ruby_rudd


	17. A sinking feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate scoffed, “Death is less confusing,"
> 
> “Yeah, but it’s also m-more lonely,”
> 
> Kate groaned, “Forget I said anything, let’s just go get lunch,” she pulled him across the street.
> 
> Lunch was quiet, to say the least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written sporadically. I'm too tired to properly proofread it so please spot mistakes.  
> Lot's o' dialogue  
> Kate is weird and edgy  
> Is any of this fluff canon?? Probably not lmao. I'm being creative. Don't look at me like that; I'm going off of nothing here >://

Toby was awoken at an ungodly hour of the morning and they rushed out to get it over with before the sun rose.

Kill someone, sell their body, go back to the hotel and fall back to sleep.

 

After getting 2 more hours of much needed rest, Toby pulled himself out of bed. He stretched as he scouted his surroundings. Double room with the door open. Kate munching on cereal, sprawled out on the couch watching cartoons on the TV. Brian and Tim in the other room, docile, if not asleep.

“Where’d you ge-get cereal?” Toby’s tired voice croaked.

“Lobby has a breakfast buffet of sorts, $2, pretty wide selection. I’m about to go down there for more, you wanna come with?”

“Y-yes please,”

He followed her down the stairs to the lobby, $5 in his pajama pants pocket. It wasn’t exactly deserted, but there weren’t a lot of people. The people that were there sat at the tables, eating and talking or eating and working. It was all you can eat, $2 each time you came to grab more, whether or not you were grabbing a complete second helping, or just grabbing another piece of toast. One lady sat by the money box in her hotel uniform, she eyed the two as they made their way over.

Toby grabbed a white ceramic plate and accompanying bowl. He eyed everything carefully. Scrambled eggs, hash browns, wheat toast, fruit and granola. Blueberry waffles, sausage links, juice box.

He and Kate walked back to the hotel room, eying each other’s food.

Kate had a refill on her fruit loops, as well as 2 blueberry muffins and sausage links.

They sat on the couch, eating their food sloppily as they watched Spongebob reruns.

“You got two whole meals,” Kate laughed.

“I couldn’t choose, so I got both,” he shrugged. “I made the right decision,”

“You’re going to regret eating all that, the lunch menu is even better,”

“It’s five-forty-five in-in the morning at y-you want to tell m-me- you want t-to tell me I’ll be full in six hou-rs? Not to men-ntion we’re going to be /swimming/ all mor-morning. We’ll b-be famished,”

“I-,” she paused. “You have a point,”

They giggled.

“What do they have on the lunch menu that’s /so/ To Die For?”

“Turkey club, BLT, hamburgers galore, salad, pasta, /pasta salad/, wraps, Rueben sandwich, grilled cheese with tomato soup, the works,”

“Damn, now I’m hungry again,”

She giggled. “Let’s give it an hour or so, then we’ll go swim,”

“Works for me,”

 

“There’s food downstairs, $2 a pop,” Kate yelled at the two older boys as she heard them shuffle around in the other room.

“Sick!” Brian exclaimed under his breath.

Once the two left for food, Kate turned to Toby. His eyes stared at the TV screen before noticing her gaze. His grey eyes met her hazel ones. His breath hitched in his throat as the sounds of the TV faded out and all was still and quiet.

“Katherine Elizabeth,”

“..What?” Toby crinkled his nose in confusion.

“That’s my name,” she cleared her throat. “What’s yours?”

Toby snorted at this odd interaction, “Tobias Erin,”

“Tobias A-A-Ron,”

“No, l-l-like, Erin with an `E` an-and an `I`,”

“The girl spelling??”

“Yeah,” he trailed off.

“That’s silly. Did youuuu.. have any siblings?”

“Yeah, m-my older sister. You?” he said uneasily.

“Two sisters and a brother. Brother older, sisters younger,”

“Cool,”

“Wwwhere’d you grow up?”

“Uh,” he racked his brain for the answer. “Michigan,”

“Did it really take you that long to think of that?”

“,,Yeah,”

“That’s sad,” she snickered. “What’s your favourite type of weather?”

“Uh, I d-dunno,” he shrugged, “You?”

“Mn, rain,” she studied his features carefully. “What’s your favourite animal?”

“Tarantula,” he grinned as her face turned in disgust. “You?”

“Something /normal/; fish,” he laughed at her.

“Now I get to as-ask questions. How popu- how many friends did you ha-ave in middle sch-school?”

“Uh, like, six. Four close ones,”

“Have you everrr-r kissed someone?”

“Yes. It was regrettable,”

He snickered, “Have you ever be-en on a date?”

“Yes, also regrettable,”

“Have you been in a rel- a relationship?”

“No,”

“What weapo- weapon are you best with?”

“My fists,” she grinned evilly. “Naw," she laughed, "Knifes, bats, rocks, that sort of thing,”

“If you could have any hairstyle, w-what would it be?”

“Long and smooth and wavy with parts of it braided back into a crown,” she gushed, “With the tips lighter than the rest,”

“What’s your-r favourite school s-subject?”

“Gym,”

“Same he-ere,” he giggled. “What’s your favourite vid-videogame?”

“Halo three?”

“Old school,”

“Hardly,” she shrugged.

“Five fa-favourite candy flavo-ours?” he turned back to the TV.

“Uh, strawberry, grape, orange, um.. cherry, raspberry?”

“Blue or regular?”

“Blue..” she pulled her ratty hair behind her ear. “What are /your/ five favourite candy flavours?”

“Cherry, gr-een apple, um, blue raspberry, /red/ raspberry, u-uh, cherry,” he smiled triumphantly.

“You said cherry twice,”

“I like cherry,” he shrugged. “What are your fi-five favourite choc-olate flavours?”

“Flavours of chocolate?”

“Like in a bo-box of chocolates, what would yoU- want to be in the box?”

“Ohh, dark chocolate raspberry, dark chocolate cranberry, dark chocolate sea salt caramel, super dark chocolate with sea salt and almonds, uhhh, milk chocolate..?” she grinned.

“You really l-like dark choco-chocolate,” he snickered. “White chocolate raspberry, milk choc-chocolate raspberry caramel, m-milk chocolate peanut butter, dark- o-or milk chocolate cherry, uuuh, hnG-, milk ch-chocolate almond..?”

“That was a very specific question,”

“I wanted to make sure you w-weren’t a heathen,”

“I’m already a heathen, I don’t think my taste in chocolate would change that,”

They both laughed.

* * *

“Are you guys go-going to join us?” Toby turned to look at the older boys.

“Maybe,” Brian smirked, glancing at the older boy sat next to him.

Toby squinted, “You look thirsty, drink some water,”

“Oh, I will,” his smirk grew.

Toby squinted his eyes more in disgust, “We should be back by ten,”

“Mhm,”

Toby pulled Kate out the door, and they rushed to the pool.

* * *

Kate laughed, “So then what /is/ your explanation?”

“Aliens,”

She laughed again, “Aliens?”

“Yeah. Aliens were li-like `Oh, sick, they made there way over, let’s see what th-these dudes are made of` a-and abducted them,” he swam around.

“So the answer behind the disappearance of the Roanoke settlement is /aliens/?”

“Y-yup!”

“I hate you,” she laughed.

“I mean, w-when every other idea ma-makes your head hurt, you’re gonna g-go with the thi- the thing that doesn’t m-make your head hu-rt,” he shrugged.

“I can’t argue with /that/ logic, but I certainly don’t agree with your answer,”

“T-that’s probably for th-the best,” he snickered.

“I’m tired, we should go back to the room,” she changed the subject, floating on her back.

“W-what time is it?” Toby asked, looking around for a clock. “Oh, hell, i-it’s almost noon,”

“Shit, let’s go,” they swam to the wall and crawled out, wrapping themselves in towels.

 

They ran down the hall, passing door after door, until finally reaching their room.

“You guys were gone for a while,” Brian said, impressed.

“Lost track of time,” Kate shrugged, heading for the bathroom. She turned back to Toby, “I call first shower,” she snickered before dashing into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

“Aw damn,” Toby said in defeat, readjusting the now cold and wet towel draped over his shoulders. He turned to Brian and Tim. “What’s t-the plan?”

“Leave first thing tomorrow,” Tim said, not looking up from the TV.

“Massachusetts?”

“Yup,” Brian smiled at him.

“Cool. How long is that going to take?”

“Forever,” Tim complained.

Brian snickered, “Sixteen hours to get to Ohio, another sixteen-ish hours to get to Deerfield, Massachusetts,”

“Ew,”

“Yeah,” Tim laughed.

“When do we h-have to be back in California??” Toby scrunched up his nose.

“Between the last week of June and the first week of July,” Brian explained.

“And t-today is the.. ninth?”

“Ninth,” Brian nodded.

“That feels like a l-lot of time, but it’s also going to go b- go by pretty fast,” Toby groaned.

“Yeah, at least we get to be out of state,” Brian suggested.

“Pft- yeah, in a car,” Tim laughed.

“Whatever,” Brian rolled his eyes.

“Wait, there’s a-a shower in the other room,” Toby said. “Fuck this, I’m going to take a shower,” he sighed.

Tim and Brian laughed.

* * *

“Uuuuugggghhhhhh,” Toby flopped onto the bed. “I miss home,”

Kate snickered, glancing to the closed door joining the two rooms.

“We have to be on the r-road for sooo long,” the brunet complained into his hands.

“It do be like that sometimes,”

Toby giggled, sitting up to look at Kate. She stared at the floor, absentmindedly. “What’cha th-thinkin’ about?”

“Oh? Mh, nothing,” she shrugged, looking up at him.

“You wanna go g-get lunch?”

“Eh,” she shrugged, “I’m not really hungry,”

“Aww, I-I thought you w-were looking forward- forward to lunch,”

She just shrugged, looking back to the floor.

Kate was in a funk, and Toby didn’t very much like that. He brainstormed things to say, or ways of getting her out of her funk, but nothing he thought of was good enough. The silence filled the room as Toby glared off into space, concentrating.

He was getting more and more frustrated when Kate broke the silence.

“Let’s go window shopping,”

“What?”

“There are shops around here, let’s go window shopping, I’m bored,”

Toby shrugged, standing up, “Tell Tim an-and Brian, lemme g-get my shoes on,”

 

The town wasn’t exactly a tourist hot spot, but it did have a few shops to gaze in on. Eventually, Kate wandered into a toy store, Toby following behind. They walked up and down isles, looking at miscellaneous toys, without any real motive other than to pass time. 30 minutes must’ve passed before they wandered out, heading back towards the hotel.

“It’s weird,” Kate watched cars pass them by. “Usually when people travel, it’s to see family, or go to tourist places; yet here we are, taking people’s lives like it’s nothing,”

“What are y-you getting at?”

“I- I dunno,” she stopped, turning to him. “I don’t know. I don’t know why any of us ended up like this, I don’t know why /we’re/ doing any of this. I really don’t know,” she rambled. “I don’t know why we were ripped away from our lives, I don’t know, I-I..” she sighed. “I don’t know, I don’t- I don’t understand why- I-,” she looked down at the ground, searching for the right words.

Toby tugged her arm.

She inhaled, “I don’t know why we’re so.. socially.. outcasted, uh, isolated. It’s so confusing, o-our lives, a-and none of of this makes any sense and-,”

Toby cut her off, “Try not to thi-think about it. It d-doesn’t make sense, and it never w-will,” he looked into her confused hazel eyes, “There’s no point in w-wondering. Y-you just.. have to experience your live as it is, a-and not question it. It doesn’t make s-sense and it’s not supposed to,”

She sighed, “We just.. aren’t a part of society, and I never realized I’d miss that, b-but I do,” she glared at the ground and pulled them back into walking.

“Yeah, b-but we just have to g-go through our li-lives and.. uh, just.. let i-it happen,” he shrugged. “It’s weird, and I-I’m bad at talking but like- you- uh- we- kng- we just- are,” he pulled at words. “We just are, this j-just is. This is just how it is. I-it’s better than being d-dead,” he shrugged.

Kate scoffed, “Death is less confusing,”

“Yeah, but it’s also m-more lonely,”

Kate groaned, “Forget I said anything, let’s just go get lunch,” she pulled him across the street.

Lunch was quiet, to say the least.

 

* * *

 

Staring at the ceiling, looking over the crinkly drywall patterns slathered in white paint. The occasional red and yellow lights from the street below shone on the wall adjacent the half curtained window. The soft sound of 3 other people sleeping mixed with the sounds of cars passing by, creating an odd harmony.

He stared at the ceiling boredly for roughly 45 minutes before he begrudgingly pulled himself out of bed, careful not to wake the sleeping figure beside him. He tiptoed over to the minifridge, looking inside it without any real motive until the idea hit him. His eyes shifted over to the sofa, where Brian’s backpack lay. He looked back to the sleeping figures before quietly unzipping the front pocket and digging around until his hand came across a wallet. He pulled out a 5 and 3 ones before grabbing one of the keycards on the side table.

Toby opened the heavy door as slowly as possible, and shut it behind him as softly as he could manage. He tiptoed down the hall to a small side room with an ice machine, a drink vending machine, and a snack vending machine.

He bought a snickers bar, a bag of chex mix, and a bottle of water, with $1 left over. He chewed his lip, figuring he should use the remaining cash. His eyes scanned the two vending machines for more time than necessary before choosing a bag of skittles.

Content with his purchases, he tiptoed back to the hotel room, looking over all the door numbers, reminding himself what his room number was. He slid the card into the slot very quietly and locked it behind him. He put the snacks down on top of the mini fridge, putting his water inside of it.

He crawled back into bed, sighing before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Tim forcibly inhaled and exhaled, “You probably don’t realize how serious something like that is but spending money impulsively like that could have put us back a day. I think we’d bother prefer takeout over an overpriced bag of skittles,”

“I’m sorry,” Toby bit his lip, “I should ha-ave asked. I just didn’t want to wake y-you and I was kind of on aut-opILot,” he explained, “My mistake; it won’t ha-appen again,”

“It’s alright, everyone makes mistakes, just don’t let it happen again,” Tim ran his hand through his charcoal hair and smiled at the shorter boy. Toby nodded and smiled back.

He returned to pushing his clothes into his bag and making sure they left nothing behind.

“Damn, you handled that well, I totally would have yelled at him about how unfair that is,”

Toby snickered, “The difference between y-you and me is that I’m an adult, and can act li-i-ike one, you however, are not,” he smirked, “D-Don’t forget, I’m 19,”

“Hard to remember when you look, act, and are treated as a 14 year old,” Kate shot back halfheartedly, grinning.

“Habit,” he shrugged.

“Awful damn habit to have,”

“We all have our sh-short comings,”

“Now you sound all philosophical,”

“You make me feel my age,”

“Ew,”

He scrunched up his nose and she stuck her tongue out in protest.

They both giggled as they hauled their bags out to the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi?? hunty get ready for pain and misery with more fluff..
> 
> At least 4 more chapters.. but probably a bit more than that.  
> Next chapter should be uploaded next week (if not sooner) since it's already finished :D  
> <3  
> insta: @ruby_rudd  
> email: krudd2000@gmail.com


	18. Oops! All Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toby wasn’t thinking, he was just kicking. He knew he was crying now. He was sobbing and kicking. Primal fear and rage flowed through him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for guns, murder, and brutally beating people to death :)  
> you guys should all probably be used to that sort of thing, and it isn't very graphic, but stay safe <33
> 
> Sorry I couldn't upload earlier >:// we had to put my dog down  
> Chapters will be less sporadic!! I promise!!!

Kate scowled as they got out of the car, the darkness swallowing the masked figures.

The 4 snuck into the backyard of a quaint home curtained behind trees. Masky and Hoodie snuck into the house, while Kate and Toby went to the barn.

5 figures were gathered around a table in the dimly lit barn. 4 older and 2 younger, all adults, 2 female, 3 male. They all chattered, with papers and 2 laptops strewn about the table.

Toby threw a rock near the ajar barn door, alerting the figures around the table.

“Isaac, take a look,” one figure spoke, another figure, Isaac, grabbed a sawed off shotgun and scuttled out to where the rock landed. He pointed the gun wherever his eyes pointed. He scanned the area, stepping away from the doorway.

Kate got us behind the figure, pulling him into a headlock with one arm, and covering his mouth with her other arm. Isaac struggled and eventually dropped his gun, Kate caught it with her foot, as to not make noise. Eventually, the struggling stopped, and Isaac went limp. Kate dragged the body out of the way before grabbing the gun. She looked to Toby, who nodded. She handed the gun to him and they waited. Toby felt the gun’s weight, it was heavy, and felt dangerous.

“Ugh, go check on him,” a figure grunted, pointing at another figure. They carefully stepped outside, calling for Isaac before stepping away from the door.

Toby slammed the gun into the back of the figure’s head, and Kate caught the body. She pulled the body over to the other, struggling with how heavy this one was.

Minutes passed before a third figure came outside, only now they were more suspicious than annoyed. They all held guns.

Toby shakily shot this figure. The other two jumped up and ran outside. Kate disarmed one, and they engaged in hand to hand combat, meanwhile Toby struggled to keep the gun from aiming at him. Toby was able to pull the shotgun away from its owner, but the man grabbed Toby and held him in a choke hold.

Hoodie ran up and helped Kate hold the other figure down while Masky ran close behind.

A gun was held to the brunet’s head as he struggled under the larger man’s grasp.

His mind screamed that he was going to die, that this was it, but he continued to struggle. Masky and Kate held the other figure to the ground at gunpoint while Hoodie pointed a shotgun at the figure holding tightly to Toby.

The man behind Toby yelled threats, but Hoodie hardly spoke. The gun against the brunet’s head was cocked, and the barrel dug into his scalp.

It didn’t even register to Toby that he was crying as he struggled. His jaw clenched, and his adrenaline pumped wildly.

The man spewed threats and all Hoodie did was call his bluff. Masky and Kate stared shakily, as did the man underneath them, but Hoodie was still. He stood his ground stiffly, gun pointed right behind Toby’s head.

Nobody was allowed to move, or Toby would have his brains blown out, everyone was frozen in place regardless of this threat. It seemed like no one knew what to do, but Toby felt more like he was being tested. Like this was a controlled trial, rather than an uncontrolled situation. Toby racked his brain for a way out of this, and eventually he came to his senses.

He kicked the figure behind him in the shin with all his force. The man staggered back and Toby kicked again and again until he broke free of his grip. The man fell to the ground and Toby kicked him repeatedly. Hoodie scurried up behind him, pointing the gun in the man’s face. Toby wasn’t thinking, he was just kicking. He knew he was crying now. He was sobbing and kicking. Primal fear and rage flowed through him.

Masky yelled for him to stop, and Kate staggered over, pulling the pistol out of the figure’s hand. She pulled Toby back and he struggled blindly against her bearhug grip around his torso. She pulled him down to the ground and hugged him tightly until he stopped struggling and yelling unintelligibly.

The man came back to his senses, though severely wounded. He pleaded weakly but it was no use.

A deafening gunshot rung.

Kate rocked Toby back and forth as he panted and twitched and coughed.

Hoodie briefly calmed the brunet down before joining Masky in the barn.

Kate shushed the boy and he pulled off his goggles and mouth guard, wiping his eyes.

“You’re okay, we’re okay, everything’s okay, shh, you’re okay,” Kate repeated like a broken CD until Toby was still. He stared at the bleeding body lying at his feet.

He pulled himself together and they made their way back to the car. Masky and Hoodie loaded computers and papers before driving the car towards the barn. Kate held Toby on the steps of the front porch.

They listened to bugs chirp in the grass as their heart rates slowed back to normal.

Masky and Hoodie loaded bodies that didn’t have flesh wounds into the back of the car before joining Toby and Kate on the porch.

They all just sat there a good while, panting until their heart rates slowed.

“We’re okay,” Brian reassured no one in particular.

They shakily made their way back to the car and drove under the orange street lamps of town. No one spoke.

30 minutes seemed like 10, and they parked on the side of the road, a few towns away.

Bodies and cash were exchanged, and the driving continued another half hour before parking in another no name motel. They pulled themselves in and sat down, still dazed.

After a while of staring at the floor, Brian made sure everyone was alright. He cleaned and bandaged the scrapes and cuts on arms and legs, observed the bruises, and made sure no one pulled a muscle or tore a ligament or something.

Brian tended to the broken skin of Toby’s scalp, checked his neck, arms, legs, all that. Then he was pulled into an embrace. Just a long, tired, tight hug; Brian’s face buried in the crook of Toby’s neck.

Tim and Kate stirred in the background; changing clothes, brushing their teeth, whatever else. Toby just stared at the floor, grasping at Brian’s sleeves.

Eventually, Brian pulled away. For a moment, he just stared into Toby’s dark eyes, then kissed him on the forehead and moved on to getting ready for bed. Toby shakily pulled off and on articles of clothes, ran his hand through his hair, then crawled into bed.

Kate set herself up on the sofa, and Toby watched.

Brian and Tim quarreled about who slept where momentarily, before Brian ent into the bathroom to wash his hands, Tim walked over to Toby.

Tim’s hand rest on Toby’s arm until Toby looked up at the older boy. Tim smiled tiredly, kissed Toby on the nose, conversed briefly with Kate, then crawled into the other bed.

Toby focused on his breathing, closing his eyes. The sound of a light switch, shuffling of sheets, and eventually the feeling of a body up against his.

Though all very tired, none found sleep easily. They collectively stared at the ceiling for a good while. Sleep did not grant much, but it was better than being awake.

 

* * *

 

_Dirtied grey brick led the brunet through a dim and bleak land of grey grass and what appeared to be a town. Cars parked on the side of streets, houses and buildings, trees next to sidewalks. But everything was grey, like covered in volcanic ash or shrouded in fog, only neither seemed present. Even his clothes were shades of grey, though his skin and hair were not._

_The air dry and thin, the cold making his hair stand up, he couldn’t help but feel like his surroundings were familiar._

_Of course it was. He was walking towards a health clinic. He wasn’t sure why out of all the things in his life he’d forgotten, all the little details in his most cherished memories, he could remember this clear as day._

_He felt the temperature drop, and he could see his breath, as shallow as it was. He walked closer and closer towards the building before the scene changed. His converse covered feet were still on the grey brick, and everything around him was still greyscale, only now there were no buildings or trees. Just the brick path, with dead and thinning grey grass around. Until he saw a flash of colour, which stuck out like a sore thumb. He looked towards the light grey horizon, and dark grey figures stood, watching._

_He couldn’t distinguish the figures, as their features were distorted. There had to be at least 9, but he wasn’t sure. He continued walking along the path, for lack of anything else to do._

_Everything began shifting as he walked, practically transparent obelisks turned into translucent trees, which turned into an opaque forest. He saw that flash of colour again and he looked around frantically._

_Again, he saw distorted figures in the distance, standing amongst the trees and staring at him, only this time they were closer._

_They appeared to be human, but he could distinguish nothing more._

_Toby shivered, only having a short sleeved shirt on._

_The grey bricks led him to an unknown place, or was there even a destination? Maybe he’d walk along the path forever, only it seemed the figures were getting closer. He walked for an unknown amount of time, which felt like forever, but also like a short amount of time._

_Eventually he walked towards a clearing, with trees surrounding it in the distance. He quickened his pace until finally making it to the clearing. The sky looked to be growing darker, like a storm was on its way._

_The brick ended where the forest did._

_He turned back to see where he’d come, but stopped in his tracks when he backed into something. He quickly turned to see what it was, and it was one of the figures. The figure was taller than him, but couldn’t be 6’. It grabbed his shoulders tightly._

_The figure wore dark grey clothes that hung over him similar to a cloak, a hood over its head, and its skin was an unnatural grey like it had been dead for a while._

_Toby struggled out of its grasp and backed up a good 20 feet before bumping into another figure, which grabbed his shoulders in the same fashion. He shivered in fear and surprise. This figure behind him shoved him forward, making the brunet stumble, catching himself with his hands. The grass, though grey, was long, as if it hadn’t been cut recently, and was covered in dew. This sent chills through his body. He stood and looked around him._

_13 figures surrounded him in a circle formation, all looking rather similar to the first one, though each having variations in height and facial structure._

_Toby spun himself around to see all of them, then a flash of colour caught his eye._

_It was red._

_He couldn’t see it, what it was, or where it was, but he knew he’d seen it. He had grown frustrated with the torment of this flash of colour._

_He felt panic rise within him, a constant low hum ringing in his ears loud enough for him to realize it’d been there since the start._

_He spun around, making sure no one moved when he saw it._

_A red flower slowly floating to the ground behind the circle. The flower looked generic, like the loosely shaped plastic flowers on chains for cheap makeshift Hawaiian flower leis._

_He stared at the flower as it gracefully descended towards the ground. The flower disturbed him greatly, and he felt emotions swelling in his chest. He felt like crying and screaming in anger, sadness, and fear. He was distraught, staring panickedly at the flower._

_Everything around him darkened, and the flower became the centrepiece of misery. The figures closed in and he tried to run towards the flower, but the figures held him back, he struggled and screamed and cried._

_He didn’t know why but he needed to get the flower before it hit the ground. He clawed and kicked and thrashed against the figures, tension and stress built up, and the air felt cold and heavy against him. He screamed and cried and begged and then the flower landed in the grass._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based of a dream (out of a series lmao) I had the other night that spooked me.  
> Probs a bit inspired by Twenty-One Pilot's `Jumpsuit` music video but hh,,
> 
> Cliffhanger??   
> I plan to upload the next chapter on Monday <33


	19. The Calm After The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And Tim didn’t get the memo that college parties are very much not similar to middle school dances, hence he dressed like he was going to prom, rather than a dive bar,” Brian snickered.
> 
> “MnnHH,” Tim yelped in protest. “How was I supposed to know??”
> 
> “You weren’t, I was kind of hoping for that outcome, honestly,” Brian admit, giggling nefariously. “He had his hair all fancied, wearing a nice, oh, what colour was it?”
> 
> “Purple,” Tim cringed.
> 
> “Yeah! A nice purple long sleeved dress shirt, he didn’t have dress pants, so he wore the nicest pair of jeans he owned, black skinny jeans, if I recall correctly,” he gawked at the frustratedly embarrassed boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HhhHHnnGGhh,, GAY
> 
> I said I'd upload on monday but thAT DIDN'T HAPPEN LMFAO
> 
> ,,, this chapter made me so soft that now I have ideas for an evEN GAYER AND MORE AWKWARD fic,,, from dem college days,,,, ,,,oops,, so that should exist after this fic is finished

Toby opened his eyes, feeling oddly zen, he focused on his breathing for a good while before stretching himself awake.

He felt stiff and worn out, certain he’d be in more than a little pain if he could feel it. He breathed deeply and took in his surroundings.

Kate slept curled up like a kitten on the sofa. The bed beside him was messy, but there was a severe lack of Tim in said mess. He then heard the mumbles of said man and looked beside him. Brian and Tim were sprawled out sloppily on 3/4 of the bed, sleeping as peacefully as one can after the events of last night.

All was well, and if he hadn’t already woken up fully, he would’ve curled up and fallen back to sleep. With a newfound smile on his face, he pulled himself out of bed, wandering around the cheap motel. He looked out the window, it was cloudy. He hadn’t seen clouds in over a week, so he couldn’t help but feel that this was going to be more of a melancholic day.

The room was cold, abnormally so. After observing the teen sleep, he realized that was creepy and for lack of anything else to do, he crawled back in bed, cuddling up to the two sleeping boys.

An hour or so had passed on Toby’s mind wandering, though it didn’t feel like long, when the sleeping boys began to stir. Toby nuzzled into Tim’s hair, smiling. Soon enough Brian was yawning, and Tim rolled over, trying desperately to fall back to sleep. Toby giggled at this pathetic attempt and kissed the older boy on the forehead. Brian rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and repositioned himself to look at the brunet.

The teal eyed boy smiled at Toby before grimacing light heartedly and mouthing “Everything hurts,”

Toby scrunched up his nose and grimaced along, “Sorry,” he whispered sympathetically. The younger boy turned his attention back to Tim. “I-it’s time to get u-up,” he whispered.

“Mmmhnnmm,”

“Sweet-h-heart~,” he cooed.

“MnnmmmmmmMMMmm,” he nuzzled his face into the pillow.

Toby brainstormed briefly before pulling himself out of bed (and out of Tim’s grasp) and dug through Brian’s backpack.

“Mmmnn now I’m cold,” Tim mumbled gloomily into the pillow.

“Oh h-hush, I’ve got asprin,” he pulled the bottle out of the bag, digging around for a water bottle.

“True love,” Tim admired, Toby handing the older boy the water and pills.

“An angel,” Brian added on, giggling.

“Yeah y-yeah, I’m t-the seco- the second coming of J-Jesus Christ,” he rolled his eyes, plopping back onto the bed.

Once the both of them had hastily taken the asprin, they laid there for a bit, waiting for said painkillers to kick in.

“I swear to god if this stuff doesn’t start doing its job in the next ten minutes, I’m gonna stop breathing,” Tim threatens jokingly.

“I won’t allow it,” Toby pecks the dark haired boy on the nose.

“It should wear on in a few minutes, you big baby,” Brian laughs.

They all fell silent, staring off into space for a good minute.

“I h-honestly don’t ev-even know how t-to feel ab-about last night,”

“I don’t know how to feel after last night,” Brian snickered. “Pretend it never happened or have an existential crisis?”

“Ehhh, I-I think I’ll go with the f-first option,”

“Works for me,” Tim declared, running a hand through his hair.

“We should get up now,” Brian stated.

“EhhHhHHhh,, or we could lay here and cuddle for another hour,” Tim suggested, smirking.

“Tempting,” Toby swallowed. “I think I’ll pass,” he slid off the bed, “I’m hungry,”

Brian groaned, “God dammit, I don’t want to deal with life today,”

“W-well too bad,” Toby laughs. “What are we going to do today?”

“I refuse to drive,” Tim states.

“I don’t want to stay here longer than I have to,” Brian whines.

“W-well I can’t dr-drive, so unless you’re dri-driving, we’re stuck h-here,”

“Where would we even go?” the charcoal haired boy asks.

“Hartford,”

“How long is that drive??”

“Like an hour this time of day,” Brian shrugged. “I’m guessing,”

“Hell,”

“I can drive for an hour,” Brian suggests.

“Guess that’s the plan then,”

“W-what about breakfast?”

“Fast food,” Brian snorts.

“S-sick,”

“Get Kate up, we’ll get everything in the car,” Tim sighed.

* * *

The middle of nowhere quickly turned into towns, which quickly turned into a city.

Hartford.

“T-that was quick,” Toby commented.

“Yeah, the east coast has much smaller states, you drive for an hour and suddenly you’re three states away,” Brian laughs, pulling into a hotel parking lot.

“So we went from one place to sleep to a nicer place to sleep?” Kate inquired.

“That’s basically what hotel hoping is,” Tim snickered.

“Oh, so there’s a term for it now?” she pushed her hair behind her ear.

“It’s been around longer than you have, I assure you,”

They pulled themselves, and their belongings, into a hotel room.

“There’s no couch,” Kate pointed out, laying her bag on the floor by the door.

“Eh, pillow barrier,” Brian shrugged.

“That never ends well in movies,”

“What kind of fucking movies you watching?”

“Porn,”

“Bad,” Toby scolds.

“Fuck you, I’m a big kid,”

“Implying the r-rest of us aren’t,” he snickered.

“If you describe yourself as a `big kid` I’m pretty sure you aren’t,” Tim chimes.

“Then I g-guess we’re all to-toddlers,” Toby laughed.

“God we’re all tired,” Brian shook his head.

“I’m hungry,” Kate sat haphazardly on one of the beds.

“Tragic,” Toby jumped onto the other bed, shoving his face in the sheets.

“God, it feels like we’re dealing with children,” Tim groans.

“Hey, at least we’re not all fighting about whether we want Burger King, McDonalds, or Wendy’s,” Kate warns.

“The fact you’d put Wendy’s on the same level as BK and McDonalds is despicable,”

“You’re despicable,”

“I’m being bullied,”

“I w-want chick-fil-a,” Toby blurted.

“I could go for that,” the peanut haired boy shrugged.

“I’m not going with, just get me the original sandwich thing,” Tim dug through his bag.

“Byee loser!” Kate shut the door loudly.

* * *

“Shit’s overrated anyhow,”

“Aw, you’re j-just bitter,”

“I’m serious, relationships are dumb,” Kate sighed.

“Only if your partner is dumb,” Brian winked.

“Yeah, hard to find one who isn’t,”

“T-that’s what adulthood i-is all about,”

“I think you’re full of shit,”

Toby shrugged.

“Plus you’re hardly an adult, so like, fight me,” Kate pointed out.

Brian opened the hotel room door and they put their fast food bags down on the TV stand (the only surface other than the bathroom counter or a nightstand). The sweet tune of Tim plucking away on his ukulele filled the room.

“I thought you didn’t bring that,” Brian said, surprised.

Tim shrugged, “I grabbed it last minute,” he placed the instrument down and went to grab food.

“W-where the fuck are we suppo- ngh, supposed to eat??”

“The floor,” Tim laughed.

“Works for me, I still get hot food,” Kate shrugged, sitting down and carefully dipping her waffle fries into ketchup.

“You have no dignity,” Brian laughed, joining her.

“And neither do you,” she snorted.

“We n-need some kiddy ch-chairs and a tea set,” Toby sat with his legs `crisscross apple sauce` and his food on his lap.

“This is some dumb shit,” the charcoal haired boy commented, begrudgingly sitting on the floor.

“Be thankful we even have a hotel room floor to sit on,” Brian feigned a bitchy mom voice, snickering.

“At l-least we have food a-and we’re n-not starving i-in Somalia,” Toby added on, giggling.

Kate snickered, “You sound like my aunt,” she took a bite of her sandwich. “She would always guilt trip everyone into eating her gross casseroles at family gatherings,”

“Yuckk,” Brian snickered, “I think everyone has a family member like that,”

“Something like that,” Kate rolled her eyes, shoveling fries in her face.

“I fucking love Chick Fil A,” Brian said with a mouth full.

“Your southern is showing,” Tim put his hand on Brian’s arm.

Brian snorted, “I almost choked on my food, fuck you,” he coughed.

They all snickered, finishing their taste of heaven.

“Can I try that ukulele?” Kate asked.

“Uh, I guess, just don’t break it or anything,” he reached up to grab it, then handed it to her tentatively.

“No promises,” she winked, holding the instrument awkwardly, plucking each string a few times before strumming awfully.

“You’re bad at this,” Brian snickered.

“I don’t know how to play,” she shot back.

“Evidently,” Tim snorted.

“Yeah, yeah, ukulele man,” she handed the ukulele back to him.

“Tis I, the ukulele man!” the older boy laughed, strumming the instrument.

Brian giggled as he collected everyone’s garbage, putting it back in the bags they came in.

Tim began plucking a tune before stopping, “I’m a grown fucking man I’m not sitting on the floor,” he protested, sitting himself on the bed. He restarted the tune and mumbled the lyrics ever so slightly.

Toby crawled up on the bed and laid next to the taller boy, listening to his cheerful tune. Brian and Kate listened to the melody as they dug through their bags.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Kate told Brian, pulling clothes out of her bag and sauntering to the bathroom.

Brian saw this as his opportunity to be gay, and he wasn’t going to pass it up. He sat on the bed and pulled Toby onto his lap, running his fingers through the brunet’s messy hair. Toby’s purring and the ukulele strumming were like honey and milk, mixing like sugar and molasses to make a delightful atmosphere.

In his current state, Toby felt all was right with the world. Everything was to smell of vanilla and flowers, plants to be vibrant and alive, rivers to flow with cream, for there to be no harm to anything or anyone, and for all to be happy.

Of course, that was far from the reality, but he could dream.

The dark haired boy leaned up against Brian, whom smiled and nuzzled into his hair.

Tim stumbled on his song, snickering flusteredly. He tried to pick back up in the song where he left off, but he was too embarrassed and distracted to continue. He reached over, placing the small instrument on the nightstand before leaning back into Brian.

“It’s like two pm, why are we this gay at this hour?” Tim snuffled in light hearted frustration.

“We haven’t m-met our weekly q-quota,” Toby mumbled, holding back a giggle.

“We gay in the chili’s tonight,” Brian sniggered.

Tim turned to nuzzle Brian’s cheek, and received a light snort in amorous indulgence for his actions.

“You guys th-kn- think this bed is b-big enough for the three-e the three of us?”

They both observed the size of the bed.

“Not spaciously,” Brian laughed.

“We’ve fit in smaller,” Tim assured the smaller boy.

“That’s what he said,” Brian chuckled.

Tim sighed. “You’re breaking the contract,”

“I never signed it,”

“Yes, you did,”

“It was on a /napkin/,” Brian pleaded.

“So were your mother’s wedding vows,”

“I-,” he inhaled, “You’re not wrong, but you shouldn’t say it,”

Tim giggled.

“There was a-a contract??” Toby asked confusedly.

“No `he said/she said` jokes, no `yo mama` jokes, no references to memes from back in the day, no references or inside jokes from college,” Tim listed. “He’s broken the contract several times, but I love him too much to enforce it half the time,”

Brian snickered, nuzzling the older boy’s cheek, “How generous of you,”

“Th-that’s probably w-what you said to god aft-after you’d hit puberty,” Toby giggled.

“Excuse you,” Brian huffed. “Where on earth are you getting your information from,” he glared at Tim briefly, who held is hands up as a sign of innocence.

“Have we or h-have we not sh-showered togeth-th- together multiple times?” Toby claimed. “Not t-to mention changed clothes, s-skinny dipped, partaken in self-care ba-baths,” he listed. “It’s not like either of y-you are shy,” he chastened.

“W-well I-,” Brian swallowed, “I-,, yeah,, okay,, just,,”

“You’re not supposed to say it,” Tim squeaked.

“I have s-said nothing explicit, nor implied anything explic-cit. You two just like taking things a-a step further into territory I d-dare not touch under the eyes of god,” he feigned a superficial attitude. “Thankfully, g-god’s asleep right now, so I can call y-you two out,” he snickered.

Tim covered his face with his hands, trying not to laugh.

“Toby, what the actual hell,” Brian’s voice cracked.

“I’m a-an adult,” he shrugged, chewing his lip, flushed face brimming with mischievous glory.

“You surprise me more often than not,” Tim mumbled into his hands.

“Th-that’s what she said,”

“You’re not helpful,” the brown eyed man seethed with (poorly hidden) embarrassment.

Toby kissed both boys on the cheek and burrowed his face into Brian’s neck, hiding his flushed malicious glee.

The two older boys recovered hesitantly from their call out, craving for more affectionate exploit. Snuggling back into each other, whispering and giggling.

.. “And Tim didn’t get the memo that college parties are very much not similar to middle school dances, hence he dressed like he was going to prom, rather than a dive bar,” Brian snickered.

“MnnHH,” Tim yelped in protest. “How was I supposed to know??”

“You weren’t, I was kind of hoping for that outcome, honestly,” Brian admit, giggling nefariously. “He had his hair all fancied, wearing a nice, oh, what colour was it?”

“Purple,” Tim cringed.

“Yeah! A nice purple long sleeved dress shirt, he didn’t have dress pants, so he wore the nicest pair of jeans he owned, black skinny jeans, if I recall correctly,” he gawked at the frustratedly embarrassed boy.

“Yeah,” his voice cracked. “Everything about that night was a mistake,”

“Aww, no it wasn’t. It was absolutely adorable,” Brian gushed.

“I’m not adorable,” Tim pouted.

“Sure,” Brian rolled his eyes. “He was buttoning up a little vest! The cute little dress vests!!” he enthused.

“UuuuHnnnngggGG, noooo,” Tim groaned, “Stop embarrassing me,”

“Never,” Brian giggled. “He had this little black vest on and he was fiddling with his sleeves. I hadn’t the heart to tell him this wasn’t some formal ball. So, we just fuckin went to the frat party looking like sixteen year old closet bottoms,” he snickered. “Now, I’m not evil, I wasn’t about to let him go looking like that alone,” Brian explained, “So I went along with it, saying I’d forgotten my blazer back in my dorm, so we rushed back there and I added on dress shoes for the hell of it,”

“Oh my gooood, the blazer,” Tim gasped.

Brian laughed.

“You looked fucking great that night, holy hell,”

“That must’ve been at least one of the reasons you didn’t have a good time,” the light haired boy giggled.

“Yeah, you were making me feel extREMELY GAY, and I was not mentally prepared for the shit hole that was that party. I was so wrapped up in trying to figure out whether it was normal to feel that fuckin gAY towards your /plutonic/ friend, and not to mention we got teased to all hell,” Tim squawked.

“Oh yeah!” Brian laughed, “Alex just fucking shot you down and roasted your ass, hardcore. Seth and Amy joined in and neither of us were enjoying that,” Brian recalled.

“Alex basically called me a twink!”

“You looked like one!”

“I did not!” he shrieked.

Brian could only laugh. “Then you got all caught up about how you couldn’t drink alcohol with the anti-convulsants and you were super embarrassed as if it were a big deal,”

“Well I thought it would be; everyone else was drinking!”

“And it took you a good half an hour of avoiding us consuming alcohol before you got the guts to tell me!” Brian snickered. “I had two shots and then we left,”

“You looked like an absolute monster, you didn’t even /flinch/,”

“I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to partake in underage drinking, and it wasn’t my first, nor last time,” he giggled.

“Agghhhh, I never want to think about that night again,”

“You totally took me being half tipsy as an excuse to wrap your arm around me,”

“Well yeAH,”

“Y-you two are wild, I don’t understand how you don’t tell m-me this shit more often,” Toby pouted.

“He won’t /let/ me, I try, though,” Brian laughs as Tim shoves him light heartedly.

“You are the worst,” the dark haired boy whimpers.

They exchange eskimo kisses before snickering back at the memory of that night.

 

After what seemed like forever, they heard the shower turn off, and slowly the three settled down.

The door opened timidly, and the wet haired Kate peered out through the crack in the door. After confirming that all was safe for young audiences, she pulled the door open all the way and pulled her hair up as she walked to the bed not currently occupied. She looked suspiciously at the three boys giggling on the bed, and Toby returned the look.

“You took a l-long shower,” he commented.

“I left you three alone, I was fearful,” she laughed. “I didn’t realize until in was too late, so I hunkered down,”

“Mhm, well I’m h-happy to inform you th-that you have survived The Big Gay,”

“And been infected apparently,” she snorted.

“Isn’t that like most of the population at this point?” Brian giggled.

“Yeah, probably,” she straightened out her shirt. “The bisexuality will consume every teenaged white girl in America,”

Brian snorted, “Seems to be,”

She smirked, shrugging, “As my father once said, `homosexual interaction has been around since the dawn of time, people forget just how normal bisexuality really is`,”

“Wise words,” Tim laughed.

“Mm,” she cleared her throat, “`As long as they were to truly fall in love with and marry the opposite sex, all would be well in population town`,” she giggled. “He was a funky one,”

“How the fuck d-did /that/ come up in c-coner- tch, conversation??”

“I was like, nine, and was like, `damn, this chick on my soccer team cute as hell`,”

“The age-old tale,” Brian snickered.

After they all settled down from their laughter, Kate piped up with a question. “So what are we doing tomorrow?”

“Driving,” Brian said.

“Leisurely,” Tim added, laughing.

“As opposed to slightly less leisurely,” Kate nodded in amusement. “No more mission things??”

“Eh, I don’t think money lasts forever, so we might have to scavenge for something on the way back, but as of now, no,” the charcoal haired boy explained.

“Ah, figured. We can’t have nice things,”

“Never ever,” Brian snorted.

“Sooo, what’s dinner?” Kate asked, holding back a laugh.

“Ughhhh,” Brian groaned, pushing his face into the mattress.

“T-teenagers,” Toby sighed, as if he wasn’t still technically one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to my boi @_hazy.dreamz_ on instagram. she's been drawing some scenes from this ball of gay so fufgdign loOK AT IT


	20. DC BABY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The natural history museum?” Kate inquired. “So a quick history lesson and then a week long drive?”
> 
> “Gotta stimulate your brains somehow,” Tim shrugged.
> 
> “As opposed to stimulating my gag reflex, got it,” she rolled her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uwu the natural history museum was one of my favourites

“A six h-hour drive? That’s u-uncharacteristically sh-short,”

“Yeah,” Brian shrugged, smiling, “I think you’ll have a lot of fun,”

“What do y-you mean?”

“You’ll see,” he chuckled.

“So now we’re k-keeping secrets, huh?”

“It’s a surprise,” Tim sighed.

“Oohhhh,” Toby giggled, “I-in that case, I’ll just s-sit here patiently,” he crossed his arms over his chest lazily, staring out the window. He turned his attention and curiosity to the burner phone buzzing in his pocket. He frantically pulled it out and looked over it as if it were alien technology, it stopped buzzing and he flipped it open. He had received a text message.. from Kate.

“I didn’t k-know you could text with th-these,” he gasped.

Kate snickered, typing up a new message.

_Kate: these messages are hard to write_

_Kate: you have to press each number button thing_

_Kate: a few times to get the right_

_Kate: letters_

Toby snickered, unable to actually type his own message correctly.

_Me: death uwu_

Kate snorted, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

_Kate: pewish owo_

They both snickered.

“You’re a-awful,”

“We’re both awful,”

“Gay,” Toby laughed.

“Hardly but go off I guess,”

Toby went back to looking out the window until the phone buzzed again. He looked down to see another text notification from Kate.

_Kate: both ur bfs r qt pies_

_Kate: like tf_

_Kate: lil buff boys yus_

_Me: do not_

_Kate: sjdkf don’t act innocent_

_Me: WHAT_

_Kate: sinner_

_Me: IM BEING ATTACJED_

_Kate: uwu pewish_

Toby looked up from the phone to look at Kate.

“I hate y-you,”

She snickered, looking back at her phone.

_Kate: how’d you even manage_

_Kate: to get not 1_

_Kate: but 2_

_Kate: hot bfs_

_Me: THEYRE NOT MW BFS_

_Kate: bULLSHIT_

_Me: ur stepping over the line_

_Kate: u make no sense_

_Me: deadass_

_Me: also we should stop texting and just_

_Me: uh idk_

_Me: talk irl_

They looked up at each other, Kate smirking at the brunet.

_Kate: okay but like_

_Kate: Brian is like??_

_Kate: so mfkn_

“AAAANND I’M G-GONNA STOP YA THERE,” he reached over, trying to wrestle her phone out of her hands. She pulled it out of his reach and pushed him away, continuing to type her message.

Frantically, the flustered brunet shut his phone off, shoving it back into his pocket and staring at the floor board with a mortified look on his face. When Kate looked up to Toby, she stopped typing to laugh.

“You’re awful,” his voice cracked.

“No, you’re just dumb,”

“No bullying in the car,” Tim giggled.

“He started it!”

“I-I did not!”

 

.

 

“This doesn’t look like the middle of nowhere,” Kate noted, looking out at the city before them. Her and Toby both looked for an exit sign or something of the sort to tell them where they were until she saw a familiar building. “We’re in DC,” she gasped.

“What? L-like Washington DC??”

“Yeah, like, capitol-of-our-great-nation-of-a-union-of-states-united-under-god Washington DC,” she said sarcastically.

“Oh hell,” he gawked, “I thought th-that was in like, V-Virginia,”

Brian burst out laughing, “Technically speaking, no, but we’re on the Virginia border right now,”

“Oh,” Toby nodded, “Th-that’s cool! What are we going to see?”

“A restaurant, I’m fucking hungry,” Tim laughed, pulling onto an exit.

“Then a hotel,” Brian added.

“Then the natural history museum for a few days,”

“Then we’re heading back to California,” Brian explains.

Hearing that made Toby’s heart sink, oddly enough. He’d been looking forward to going home, but honestly, this was more fun.

“The natural history museum?” Kate inquired. “So a quick history lesson and then a week long drive?”

“Gotta stimulate your brains somehow,” Tim shrugged.

“As opposed to stimulating my gag reflex, got it,” she rolled her eyes.

“What on earth?” Brian turned to look at the teenager. “Okay, we’ll take a quick pitstop to get you blessed by a god damn priest, unholy abomination,”

Kate snickered.

Toby turned to her, “You need s-some Jesus inside of you,” they both laughed.

“Shush, you’re not helping,” Brian squawked. He looked to Kate expectantly, awaiting an answer.

She shrugged, “The word `stimulate` is weird,”

Toby snorted.

“I hate both of you,” Brian sighed, turning back to face the road.

“Hey,” Tim elbowed him, “Don’t act like you wouldn’t have said it yourself,”

“I have grown up,” Brian’s voice cracked.

“Hardly, you were saying smug shit like that just the other day,”

“To you, not eVERYONE,”

“That’s because you’re a pussy,”

“It’s because I’ve matured,” he defended.

Tim just snorted, “You’re full of shit,”

Brian glared at him in a way only described as >:Ɛ  , with his arms crossed over his chest, pouting in the front seat like a baby.

Toby and Kate snickered at the two older boys quarreling.

“I-I told you they’re not as a-adult-y as th-they’d like you to th-think,” he whispered.

“I’ve been thoroughly surprised,” she whispered back.

.

After food was had, they settled down in a hotel. Dragging in their belongings and taking in their surroundings in a nonchalant fashion.

“Yeah, b-but I didn’t think you’d ma-ake this into a vac- a vacation,”

“It’s not,” Brian countered.

“Sightseeing, popping through tourist hotspots,” Kate listed, “Definitely sounds like a business trip,” she nodded sarcastically.

“We just happened to be near one,” Brian defended.

“W-was this the plan a-all along?”

“No, this is was a last-minute thing,” Tim explained.

“I just thought it’d be nice if this trip wasn’t for nothing,” Brian smiled hesitantly at the brunet.

“It is nice, I j-just.. it’s w-weird. We never d-do stuff like this, i-it just caught m-me off guard, I-I guess,” Toby shrugged. “I a-appreciate the thought, f-for sure,”

“So we’re going to a museum tomorrow?” Kate asked.

“Yeah, it’s within walking distance. We’ll go for a few days then head back home,” Brian explained.

“We’re going to look at the same museum multiple times?” Kate asked begrudgingly.

“It’s got a lot to look at,” the burnt caramel haired boy clarified.

“Sounds like bore-town,” she sneered.

He rolled his eyes, “Whatever, be like that,” he sighed, “I think you’ll enjoy it,”

“Doubt it,” she sat on one of the beds, arms crossed over her middle, staring out the large window overlooking a street. “So what kind of dumb history lesson about our most wonderful United States do you have to put me to sleep with?”

Brian sighed frustratedly, looking to Tim for help.

The older man smiled sympathetically at Brian. “We don’t have any boring history lessons,” he snickered. “We’re not history teachers. We’re trying to get you to learn something that’s actually interesting,”

“What on earth could be interesting about a dusty museum stuffed with tourists?” she asked indignantly.

“A huge gem and mineral collection, evolution stuff, plants and animals, and collections of important historical and scientific things,” Brian answered crossly. “They’ve got an impressive collection of bones. They’ve got dinosaurs,” he added.

Kate hid her underlying intrigue, “So you’re trying to relive your childhood by taking us here?”

“I-,” Brian stuttered, taken aback, “No, not really,” he defended. “I thought this stuff was cool to the point that it got me into science and history, it probably won’t be the same for you, but there’s bound to be something there that you find interesting. Stop making personal attacks and swallow you attitude, dammit,” he huffed.

Kate just sighed, staring back out the window.

Toby winced, knowing that she’d be sulky all evening and no one would really get to enjoy themselves with her being moody and hostile in the corner. He wrapped an arm around Brian’s waist and leaned into the taller boy, smiling softly.

Brian sighed the negativity away, ruffling the brunet’s hair and smiling.

“What t-time are we going to go?” Toby asked.

“It doesn’t open until like, ten, I think, so as soon as it opens. We could get lunch at some point, then come back here around four? Does that sound good?”

“Yeah,” the brunet nodded. “S-so what are we g-gonna do until then? It’s o-only four-thirty,”

Brian thought before looking to the TV. “We could watch TV,” he suggested.

“Mmmmmnnn-nnmmh, this p-place doesn’t have a pool, does it?”

“No,” Tim said, looking through a small plastic binder that had hotel information in it. “Damn, everything in this place is expensive,”

“It’s DC, what do you expect?” Brian snickered.

“We’re gonna go broke here,”

“Yeah, probably,” Brian laughed grimly.

“Does the museum cost money??”

“I don’t remember, but it can’t be a lot,” Brian assured him.

Tim looked unsure.

“It’ll work out,” he nodded reassuringly, smiling softly at the darker haired boy.

Tim bit his lip and sighed, nodding back. “Alright,” he put the binder back on the nightstand and grabbed the remote, looking it over before turning on the TV. “Fifty-one whole channels,” he exclaimed sarcastically.

“H-high class shit right th-there,” Toby snickered, sitting down next to Tim.

A moment of static before the unintelligible yelling of people on the news filled the speakers. Tim rolled his eyes and changed the channel a few times until landing on Cartoon Network. He figured that was good enough for now, and reruns of Adventure Time were much better than the news.

.

It must’ve been around 9. Kate had to have fallen asleep around 8:30, sulking in the second bed. Toby couldn’t have fallen asleep more than a few minutes ago, leaning up against Tim; the discovery channel mumbling in the background. Tim didn’t look far from sleep either, and Brian knew they’d both be asleep before much longer.

The two exchanged glances and snickered tiredly, silently agreeing that it was time for bed. Tim turned off the TV, and Brian got off the bed, digging through their bags to get medication. He threw a water bottle in Tim’s general direction, then walked back over and handed him his pills. Brian yawned before taking the water bottle back over to the mini fridge.

He turned off the lights and crawled under the sheets, curling up against the older boy.

“M’night,” Brian mumbled.

“Night,” Tim whispered back, nuzzling into the taller boy’s hair.

 

.

 

The three boys (along with their angsty teen) meandered from their hotel to the large museum building, chatting blissfully. Kate pouted with her arms crossed over her chest, not adding to the conversation, being the stubborn kid she was.

“God i-it’s humid as hell,” Toby groaned.

“Imagine being in colonial attire all fucking day in this,” Brian scoffed.

They all collectively shuddered at the thought.

“I’m surprised they were able to make this country as well as they did, considering,” Tim laughed.

“I-I would h-have been s-signing the Declaration of Independ- Decl- Declerati- ugh!” He stuttered, “Declaration,” he hiccupped, “Of Independence,” he sighed forcefully, the other boys laughing, “In my d-damn underwear,”

Laughter of the brunet’s stuttering turned into laughter of the thought of their Founding Fathers in their tighty-whities yelling at each other about slavery and taxes. Even Kate had to hold back a snicker, trying to keep her amused smile under her scowl.

A small crowd of people waited outside of the large building, awaiting entry. Children complaining of the heat, running around and screaming restlessly, parents and grandparents rolling their eyes and trying to wait patiently in the unbearable humidity.

“Less people then I thought there’d be,” Brian gawked.

“More people than I’d hoped there’d be,” Tim added.

“It’ll be alright,” the taller boy jabbed at him, “It adds to the experience,”

“Yeah,” Tim laughed, as they added to the crowd of people.

“Th-there’s so many ve-ven- vending trucks,” Toby said surprised.

“Lot’s of them around these tourist hotspots; practically crawling all over the city,” Brian said.

“Cheap lunch,” Tim shrugged.

Soon enough the small gathering of people flocked through the doors and split up into each of the exhibits. Brian led them to the centre of the first floor, allowing them all to look at each sign above the doorways.

“Which do you guys want to go to first?” he asked.

They argued over which they wanted to go in first, eventually settling on gems first, plants second, lunch, epidemics third, then back to the hotel.

Rooms filled to the brim with rocks, big and small, shiny and grimy, smooth and rough, blue and red. Quarts, opals, rhodochrosite, calcite, pyrite; the works. Display case after display case of so many different types of rocks it’d hurt your head to count.

Kate eventually got out of her mood to join in on the oohing and awing, exclaiming about how cool nature was.

The farther into the exhibit they got, the less people there were, which was a plus. They all collectively ooh’d and aw’d and `wow isn’t nature so amazing?`’d  for a good hour before Brian slowly but surely rounded them up and ushered them to the next exhibit at the 1 hour and 45 minute mark.

“Spend an hour in here then get something to eat?” he asked.

“Sounds good,” Kate said, and everyone agreed.

Plants. Lots of plants.

Vines, trees, shrubs, flowers. Fossilized, living, preserved. Lots of plants they’d never seen before, some they had. This exhibit was slightly less cool, and they hardly spent an hour in it, but it was still decently interesting.

Exiting the air conditioned haven of learning, they jointly slumped their posture in the unbearable humidity. They wandered around the sidewalk, trying to decide which food truck they wanted to get food from, light bickering and compromising. Eating warm food. Rushing back in the now much more crowded air conditioned building.

Time flew by, reading and learning about epidemics and diseases, and before they knew it, it was almost 5pm. Staff had started ushering people to hurry up, as it was closing in less than an hour.

They made their way back outside, chatting about the plan for dinner when Toby spotted a truck selling ice cream. He practically dragged the others over to the truck and ordered.

“I-I’ve never seen so m-many options before,” Toby gawked, devouring his ice cream.

“That was single handedly the most stressful decision of my life,” Kate said, staring at her popsicle.

“We’ll g-get some tomorrow,” Toby said matter-of-factly.

“Oh really now?” Brian asked.

“I-it’ll come out of m-my pocket,” the brunet winked.

Brian couldn’t complain about that.

Iced treats were finished, and they sat on the steps of the building, discussing dinner.

“I’m all sticky,” Kate complained. “We should just go back to the hotel and eat snacks,”

“No, we’re eating at a restaurant,” Brian stated firmly.

“Well can we at least stop by the hotel, I don’t want to be this sticky going into a restaurant,”

“Yeah, we’ll stop there,” the burnt caramel haired boy sighed.

“There was a sandwich shop not far from the hotel,” Tim suggested.

“A m-mexican restaurant?” Toby suggested.

They made their way back to the hotel, still discussing the matter.

Sandwiches won by a 2.5/4 vote.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get ready for gay x10  
> plus edge??  
> Kate is edgy  
> Kate brings so much edge into this and I love her for it  
> comment on my shit you frickers  
> <333


	21. The End Of All Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Singing dumb songs, telling silly stories, and playing I-spy helped the day go by quicker, and the sun began to set before they reached the Chicago area. They stopped at a motel and quickly passed out. An odd feeling of disassociation flowing through Toby's being before drifting off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whether near or far  
> I am always yours  
> Any change in time  
> We are young again
> 
> Lay us down  
> We're in love  
> We're in love
> 
> -(Panic! At The Disco - The End Of All Things)

“You’ve got all these little freckles everywhere,” Brian said in a hushed voice, smiling as he looked over Toby’s mostly bare body. He padded around the thin boy’s pale skin, smiling like the hopeless romantical bastard he was. His nose wrinkled as he smiled, drawing patterns into the younger boy’s skin.

The dark eyed boy observed the teal eyed boy in his flustered state, swallowing down words.

Brian’s hands trailed up the brunet’s arm, to his lightly freckled shoulder. He choked back a small gasp, making Toby giggle under his breath.

“They’re so small and light, but holy hell,” Brian’s fingers traced Toby’s skin. The older boy giggled gleefully. “It’s like little tiny stars,”

“Hun,” Toby snickered.

Brian fell quiet once again, looking over the younger boy’s flesh. He bit his lip, eyes sparkling in the dim light. Toby practically stared at the caramel haired boy, watching his face contort ever so slightly in admiration and glee.

Brian eventually turned his eyes to meet Toby’s gaze, and they both smiled, a warm colour dusted on both of their faces. The lights of cars and buildings spilling through the large window they sat beside illuminated them.

Toby hesitated momentarily before reaching his hand to cup Brian’s cheek. Brian leaned into the brunet’s hand, putting his hand over Toby’s. They stared into each other’s eyes for what felt like forever, until Toby leaned in to kiss the older boy.

Brian melted into the kiss, hand slipping down to the smaller boy’s waist, other hand tangling into Toby’s hair.

Each kiss seemed to last forever, with a slightly hungry undertone, but eventually they pulled away. Toby blinked, breathing shallowly.

“I-I love you,” Toby hiccupped quietly.

“I love you too,” Brian snorted flusteredly. “God we’re acting like we’ve never done this shit before,” he exhaled.

Toby snickered, “It’s hard not to g-get like this when you’re da- so pretty,”

“That’s how I feel about you,”

They fell quiet for a bit, looking down at the floor before Brian piped up softly.

“I’m gonna go back to looking at your freckles now,”

“You’re h-hopeless,”

“Hopelessly in love with you,” Brian winked.

Toby snickered.

Brian ran his hand down Toby’s back, causing the boy to shudder.

The brunet twitched. “I love you, but we should get to sleep,”

“Buzz kill,” Brian pouted.

“Pew, dead,”

“Gosh darn,”

 

* * *

 

“I,” Kate stared at the blurb of information before her. She stood stiff, and looked rather upset.

“Kate,” Toby touched her arm, pulling her out of her trance.

She stared into Toby’s grey eyes, breathing shallowly. The bustle and noise around them seemed to evaporate into nothing at they focused on each other.

“Kate? A-are you okay?”

“I- um, I,” she grasped for words. “It just,” she sighed. “I was,, just,, thinking,” the long haired girl grimaced. “It reminded me of my little sister,” she gestured to the information of the triceratops.

“Oh, Kate, I’m s-sorry,” Toby gave her a sympathetic look.

“No, I-, it’s okay, it just, caught me off guard, I’m fine,” she shrugged, looking to the floor.

“Kate,”

“What?”

“What happened to your family?”

Anger and sadness flashed in her eyes. “I was stolen away by that- that /thing/,” her voice raised. “A-and it I was absolutely alienated, I can never go back, and I don’t really want to but-,” she sighed, lowering her tone, “Sometimes I just,, miss home,,” she swallowed, looking back up to Toby.

“I’m s-sorry, that’s awf- awful,”

“Let’s just move on, where did Tim and Brian go?” she looked around.

* * *

“Did you read the messages I sent you?”

“No,” Toby said firmly. “I don’t think I-I want to..” he trailed off.

Kate giggled. “Awe come on,”

“Nooo,”

“You’re no fun,” she play pouted.

“I’m loads of f-fun, just /innocent/ f-f-fun,”

“I didn’t text anything that would taint that,” she teased.

“Fr-from what I’d read before I turned it off, it wasn’t v- it was not innocent,”

“Wholesome. It was wholesome,”

“Those aren’t the same thing..”

“I know,” she smirked, winking.

* * *

They walked through the small crowded store of knickknacks and keepsakes. A small crowd of teenagers scurried out, making a ruckus.

“Look at all the mildly insulting political merch,” Kate pointed to racks of hats, pins, shirts, sweaters, mugs, and more, with insolent political statements on them.

“I’M G-GETTING THE `MAKE` A-`AMERICA GREAT AGAIN` HAT,” Toby yelled, running over to the rack of hats.

“WE ARE NOT BUYING A MAGA HAT,” Brian’s voice cracked.

“FOR TH-THE MEME,”

“NO,”

Kate laughed, looking at the keychains and magnets, grabbing a couple stickers as she did.

Kate grabbed a small snow globe, placing it on the counter, and paying in quarters. She didn’t pay for the stickers.

They left soon after, laughing and joking.

“That was the last part of the DC experience. Y’all’ve officially experienced DC,” Brian laughed.

“`Y’all’ve`,” Kate echoed, snorting.

“Y’all’d’ve’t,” Tim added, snickering.

* * *

“Ice cream is the best thing god has blessed us with,” Kate shoved her face full of cold sticky sweetness.

“The only thing god as blessed us with,” Brian added.

“Naw, indoor pools are on the list,” Kate clarified.

“Valid,” Brian snickered. “What should we have for dinner?”

“What time even is it?” Tim asked.

“Four?” Toby said tentatively.

“Mm. Chinese?”

“I can vouch for that,” Kate nodded.

Once finishing their cold treats, they headed back into the air conditioned palace of knowledge.

“Y-you know, I don’t think there’s a-any other exhibits I want to s-see tomorrow,”

Brian furrowed his brows. “Really?”

“Y-yeah,”

Kate nodded, and Tim shrugged at the light haired boy.

“Damn,” he looked at the ground. “Should we head back a day earlier?”

Toby nodded. “I’m ready t-to go home,”

Brian looked to Tim, who nodded and shrugged. “Kate?”

She looked torn, thinking it over a bit. “I guess. I’d like to be used to my new room before fall sets in, if that’s possible. I wanna feel cozy,” she smiled to herself at the thought.

Brian sighed, thinking it over a bit. “We’ll leave mid morning tomorrow, drive as far as we can before nine. Sound like a plan?”

“Where do you think we should.. you know,” Kate trailed off.

“Probably two-thirds of the way in. Just to make sure we have enough gas money,” he shrugged. “We’ll be proactive about it,”

* * *

Toby sighed, looking over the quickly darkening streets of downtown DC. “It’s l-like the feeling of school st-staAR- of the school year starting up a-again,”

Kate snickered. “Yeah, it does. Things are changing, it’s the middle of the heat of summer, but we all know it’ll be gone in a week or so, and the days are already noticeably shorter,” she pointed out as they walked along the sidewalk.

“I kind of h-hate change, b-but I know that I l-like what’s coming up mo-more than I like what’s going on aya- r- um- like, right now,” he stumbled, “If that makes s-sense,”

“Yeah. Like how fall is way better than summer, but you’ve gotten so used to summer that you don’t want it to end,”

“Yeah!” Toby exclaimed, enthused that someone understood exactly what he was trying to say.

Kate snickered at him and they fell quiet momentarily, listening to Tim and Brian giggle and laugh a few feet in front of them.

Toby sighed. “That’s what I love about people,” he changed the subject.

“Them?”

“Laughing and joking. Being happy,” he explained. “L-like, even though th-they’ve both been through so m-much sh- so much shit, they’re st-still like, happy,”

Kate smiled softly. “Brian’s pretty like, mentally alright, right? Okay childhood, no real big health issues, regular shit,”

“Yeah,” Toby clarified. “Tim h-had like the opposite, bu-but Brian’s life was pretty normal,” he giggled, “Brian t-tells us stories o-of his normal childhood, a-and me and Tim listen l-like he’s telling us ali-aliens invaded his neighbourh-hood or something,”

“That’s cute,” she tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Cuz neither of us had l-like, friends, or regular suburbia home l-lives,” he explained. “S-so it’s all super foreign to u-us,”

Kate nodded.

“So the m-most mundane things a-are super interesting t-to us,” he smiled.

“That’s real cool,” she smiled at the ground. “So you were bullied and had a dickhead dad, um, what’s Tim’s thing, then?”

“Mental health issues,” he shrugged. “Mostly due to mr. boss man,” he snickered, “B-but yeah. In and out of psych w-wards n stuff,”

“Oh, that sucks,”

“Yeah,”

They listened to the older boys laugh and bicker light heartedly about directions.

“I d-don’t even want to know a-about all you’ve been through o-over the years. You lived l-like, ferally,”

Kate laughed. “Yeah. Zero out of ten would not recommend,”

They both giggled.

 

* * *

 

Toby sighed, shoving his last bag in the floorboard. They had woken up early and decided to just head out, leaving them all a bit more tired then they’d hoped.

“Let’s stop at a store to get some snacks and water before we get on the highway,” Brian said to the older boy.

“Alright. Got everything loaded?” Tim asked.

They all agreed.

“B-bye bye DC,” Toby stated.

“Goodbye god awful humidity,” Kate spat as she buckled her seat belt.

“Amen,” Brian laughed.

It felt like the world was ending and they were leaving the only place they’d ever known, and for a moment, Toby felt so sad, leaving. It was short lived, but things ending always made him feel bad.

He watched the city pass him by, and he left a pebble of condolence in that city, maybe one day he’d come back, showing new people he loved something old. Maybe.

 

* * *

 

Singing dumb songs, telling silly stories, and playing I-spy helped the day go by quicker, and the sun began to set before they reached the Chicago area. They stopped at a motel and quickly passed out. An odd feeling of disassociation flowing through Toby's being before drifting off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHAHA GOTTCHA BITCH >:^DDD THIS ISN'T THE LAST CHAPTER SKADLJDFKLJDFLK  
> Sorry I haven't updated, school started and I've been a busy bitch.  
> 2 more chapters?? then a spotty sequel/epilogue fic bcuz <33


	22. Endings Never Come Peacefully

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ya know, at one point, I really wanted to go on a big road trip across the country as soon as I turned eighteen. Live in motels with the love of my life,” Kate said, staring off at nothing.
> 
> “Is it a-all you could’ve dr-dreamed?”
> 
> “No,” she snorted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter chapter because I desperately wanted to give y'all some content  
> I have I D E A S  
> aaaaaand we're going to get up to 25 chapters!!  
> There'll be an epilogue fic because I'm gay and still get ideas for everyday life fluff and comedy

“Damn, this place is empty,” Kate sighed, swinging back and forth a bit.

The swing set squealed as they both swung, looking over the desolate rest stop. “I-It’s cold, too,”

“Feels like fall,” Kate laughed. “Even though it’s still August,”

“I think that’s a mid w-w- mid west thing,”

“Probably,”

The two swung in a mutual silence for a bit.

“Ya know, at one point, I really wanted to go on a big road trip across the country as soon as I turned eighteen. Live in motels with the love of my life,” Kate said, staring off at nothing.

“Is it a-all you could’ve dr-dreamed?”

“No,” she snorted. “But this isn’t the worst, either. It’s just different,”

“Hm,” Toby sighed. “I feel l-like it’s the e-end o- the end of the world, er- s-something like that,”

“Why?” she looked to the older boy.

“Just the wh-whole change thing. B-but the grey,” he looked to the cloud covered sky, “A-and the fact this place is deserted,” he looked around, seeing only their Chevy Tahoe. “It’d make for a pretty good a-apocalypse movie s-set,” he swallowed.

“Mh. Yeah, it would,” she smiled at the thought. “I’ve always secretly hoped for a zombie apocalypse or something, thinking I’d be a total bad-ass survivor,” Kate snickered, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I-I probably wouldn’t be,” she admit, “I’d be so stressed I probably wouldn’t be able to handle it,”

“Damn, th-that’s morbid. I always secretly h-hoped I’d turn into a-a dog or something,” he gave her a look, wrinkling his nose as he smiled in amusement. “So I could just be a h-happy little companion w-with like, w-with no real troubles or responsibilities,”

“Furry,”

Toby snorted, “No. Not e-even close,”

The two giggled. They watched Brian dig through the back of the car before shutting it, trekking over to where the two swung.

“You kids about ready?”

They dismounted the swings and followed the tall boy back to the car.

Toby rolled his eyes as he dismounted, “Yeah, Dad,” he said sarcastically.

* * *

Kate groaned, sliding down in her seat. “My butt hurts. When are we going to stop??” she whined.

“The sun hasn’t even gone down yet,” Tim discredited.

“Yeaah, but my ass doesn’t care what time it is,”

The car sounded with snickers at the teenager.

Tim and Brian talked to each other quietly for a minute.

“We can get dinner in about an hour, okay?” Tim held back a laugh.

“What are we getting??” Kate was intrigued.

The charcoal haired boy sighed loudly. “We’ll discuss when we get closer,”

Kate groaned, slouching over, holding her face with her fist as she looked out the window.

* * *

Tim teased the peanut haired boy has he drove.

“No, I just think it’s funny,” he snickered.

“It is funny, it’s just also embarrassing,” Brian snorted.

“Aw, are you embarrassed that you grew up in the deep south?”

“Yes,” Brian’s voice cracked.

Kate listened to the conversation in intrigue while Toby snickered along with Tim.

“Why are you even embarrassed about it??” the charcoal haired boy asked. “It’s not like you were dating your cousin or anything,” he joked.

“Culture shock,” Brian shrugged.

“That’s why I find it so funny that I was looking up to you on how to act normal. Since you were looking to me on how to act normal in California,”

Brian laughed and groaned, “Don’t remind me,”

“What do you mean `act normal in California`?” Kate asked from the back seat.

“Well, things are different in different places, right?”

“Well yeah,” Kate shrugged.

Brian snickered, as the teen didn’t quite have a grasp on how different California and Alabama are. “Let me put it into perspective for you,” he cleared his throat. “Back in high school, it was normal to hunt before school, whenever what you were hunting was in season. So you’d get to school with your guns and stuff in the back of your truck. It was completely socially acceptable to clean out your gun in shop class,”

“Shit, that’s back woodsy,” Kate laughed.

“It gets worse,” the tall boy grimaced lightheartedly. “Usually you’d have a friend named, like, Darrel, or some shit,” he laughed. “So after school, you n Darrel would go fishing for craw-dads or catfish or similar, for dinner. So you’d bring home whatever you caught and help mom make dinner, then after dinner you’d work on homework with your friend, and get help from your family,” Brian explained. “It’s weird. Everyone is poor and it’s not uncommon for tenth graders to have a kid, and like, a third of twelfth graders had at least one kid, with a third of them having MORE than one kid,”

“Wow,” Kate said completely in shock.

“Yeah..”

The car filled with snickers of amusement.

“And when I say everyone was poor, I mean /everyone was poor/. The area had gotten some better-paying jobs, meaning it wasn’t nearly as poor as it was when my dad was growing up, so I don’t think this happened in my lifetime, but my dad knew kids whose parents had to get loans out for the kids to get school lunches,”

“You’re joking..” the hazel eyed teen gasped.

“No. And that was back when everything was even cheaper than it is now, so it was like, what, two bucks for a meal?”

“Damn,” Kate snorted.

“Mhm, so moving to California was, you know, just a /bit/ different,” he said sarcastically. “So while this muffin was trying to understand what normal people are like,” he motioned to the dark haired boy in the driver's seat, “I was trying to understand what was normal in the area,”

“I was sheltered,” Tim defended.

“I never said there was anything wrong with that,” Brian snickered, “It was just a funny situation,”

* * *

The car pulled off the highway, and through the centre of town before parking in a hotel parking lot.

Toby and Kate looked around confusedly.

“We’ve only been on the road for like, what, nine hours?” Kate asked.

“About, yeah. We’re probably gonna be here for a few days,” Brian explained as he unbuckled his seat belt. “Gonna take the car in for maintenance down the road,”

Kate’s confused look didn’t falter.

The tall boy sighed. “Driving practically non stop for weeks on end will wear a car out. Got to get oil changed n stuff,” he clarified. “Not to mention this bad boy is old, and’s had his fair share of mileage,”

“Oh,”

“Let me go get us checked in while you guys get everything out of the car,” Brian stepped out, and the others did as they were told.

They dragged all their belongings into a surprisingly nice room, piling their things in a corner.

“We’re going to drive the car down the road before the place closes, then pick up some food. You guys stay here, right?” Brian asked the two, who nodded. “I’ll call you to discuss dinner when we get to it,”

With a wave, Tim and Brian shut the hotel door behind them as they left.

Toby and Kate sighed, recuperating from dragging their luggage to the third floor before becoming curious of their surroundings.

“Pullout sofa, fuck yeah!” Kate exclaimed, poking and prodding at the nice couch.

“These b-beds are really comfor-r- really comfortable,” Toby said as he lay in one of the neatly made beds.

The teen managed to pull out the sofa, smiling pridefully at her work she brainstormed what to do next. She dug through one of her bags, pulling out a blanket and pillow. She threw them onto the sofa/bed before collecting extra pillows from the beds, and an extra blanket from the cupboard under the TV stand.

“We have a balcony,” Kate said in shock, peaking past the curtains which covered the sliding glass door.

Toby sat up excitedly. “The view a-any good?”

“Nah,” Kate sighed, peeking out to see more hotel rooms with balconies. “But,” she grinned. “There’s an inside-outside pool,”

“No way,” the brunet jumped up, trotting over to where the girl stood.

They grinned at each other, knowing full well what they were going to do tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please comment I need validation


	23. Layover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’ve been in here for fifteen minutes and I’m already bored and tired,” Kate sighed, floating on her back.
> 
> “This is gonna-g-gonna be a pretty b-boring few days, then,” Toby snickered.
> 
> “Ughhhhhh,” Kate submerged herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HHHHHalloween
> 
> sOME DUMB SHIT FOR YOUR FACES
> 
> lowkey trigger warning for alcohol mention and menstruation mention hhh

“So the car is going to be in for at least two days,” Brian said as he cleaned up his food. “They’re gonna replace the spark plug and some suspension stuff, and they had to order some parts for that, so it might take a while,”

“I have like no idea what any of that means,” Kate said flatly.

Brian snickered. “I didn’t expect you to,” he smiled, turning to look at Tim, who returned the grin. “The pool closes at nine,”

Kate and Toby looked to the clock, grinning.

* * *

“So you guys are just going to sit out and watch us play like we’re your kids or something?” Kate asked, arms crossed over her chest.

Tim snorted, “There’s a bar, first drink is free, we’re adults, we’re getting tipsy,”

“Don’t get too fucked up without me,” the teen grinned.

The dark haired boy laughed, “If you were over eighteen, I’d sneak you a drink,” he winked.

“Well fuck, how do I instantly age??” Kate said half jokingly.

* * *

“We’ve been in here for fifteen minutes and I’m already bored and tired,” Kate sighed, floating on her back.

“This is gonna-g-gonna be a pretty b-boring few days, then,” Toby snickered.

“Ughhhhhh,” Kate submerged herself.

* * *

“I dunno,,” Kate shuddered, holding her arms away from her body. “I just got like,, one of those weird intrusive sexual thoughts and now everything is awkward,” she grimaced. “Like I’m covered in an,, oily sheen,,” she snorted.

Toby snickered confusedly, “I hate h-how much s-sense that ma-makes..?”

“I wanna go back in the pool,, but I don’t want to be in a swim suit,,”

“Guess y-you’ll die,”

“Guess I will,” she shrugged.

* * *

“Uh, okay, okay, I knew this kid who used to throw axes for fun,” Kate laughed.

Tim gave Brian a look. “Brian used to throw axes all the fuckin’ time,”

Kate laughed. “No way. You? A terminal axe thrower?”

“Terminal????” Brian scrunched his nose in confusion. “And yes. I did,” He said proudly. “I was damn good at it, too,”

“Oh boy,” Kate snickered. “It’s a disease,” she shook her head.

“It’s a /skill/,” Brian corrected.

“Yeah it is. But it’s also akin to bringing an acoustic guitar to a party,” the teen laughed.

“I- w- n-,” Brian thought that over. “Shit. You’re right. You’re god damn right,” he laughed.

They all laughed.

“Uhmmm, okay!” Tim smiled, “There was this kid who collected rocks. And I mean he /collected rocks/. Like, religiously,”

“What did he do with them??”

“He kept them in this shoe box under his bed, but eventually it was confiscated,” he explained. “I think it was because some of them are sharp, and he, or someone else, could swallow them, but I dunno,”

“That’s fuckin-n weird,” Toby stuttered.

“They weren’t like, nice looking rocks either. Like, I collected rocks, but nice ones. Quarts, n shiny ones, n smooth ones, but he just collected random gross looking rocks, no discernible criteria,”

“That’s real weird,” Kate giggled.

“Shit still keeps me up at night, tryin’ to figure out what his fuckin’ criteria were!” Tim slurred, laughing.

The group snickered as they lay sprawled on the beds.

“I knew this kid who was super quiet, no friends, ya know, school shooter material,” Kate laughed. “A-,” she giggled, “And he would walk around the neighbourhood in the middle of the night, staring in through the window. No matter the weather, he’d be out there. One night he fuckin,” she cleared her throat, “He threw pebbles at my window at two in the fucking AM,” she ran her hand through her messy hair. “And he’d stare at people in school, like, /with a vengeance/,”

Toby laughed. “Sounds like me. I u-used to go o-on walks in the m-middle of the night,” he said sheepishly.

“OoOoh, bad boy,” Kate teased.

“Well it’s n-not like I had par-parties to sneak out to,” he laughed. “But I did r-run from the cops a f-few times,”

“Run from the cops?” Tim asked amusedly.

“It sounds c-cooler than it was. Curfew. I’d walked o-out to town and cl-climbed the fence around th-the primary school p-playground and got chased,”

“Oof,” Kate pulled her hair behind her ear. “Boring,”

“Yeah,” Toby snickered.

Quiet fell upon the group for a bit. A slightly awkward, but mostly enjoyable silence.

“I wanna eat a bunch of snacks and watch horror movies until the sun comes up,” Tim sighed.

“This isn’t college anymore,” Brian snickered.

“MnmnnNnn I wish it was,”

“No you don’t. Hangovers everyday plus stress and job,”

“Mnnnnnn,” Tim groaned, “True. Cursed, but true,”

“What time is it??” Kate looked around for a clock, eventually spotting one on a nightstand. “Eleven?? Damn we’ve been chatting it UP,”

“Sleep ti-time,” Toby mumbled.

“I have fancy cards I shoplifted,” Brian blurted, trying to keep everyone from getting ready for bed.

“/You/? /Shoplifting/? I don’t fucking believe it,” Tim stared at the light haired boy, who grinned, bounding off the bed to his backpack, pulling out a fancy deck of cards. Dark, with silver lettering.

“It’s got stars on it,” he smiled, pulling out the smooth, fancy, flashy cards, their air cushion finish making them slide against each other like a deer’s hooves to ice.

“You /shoplifted/ them??” Tim gawked.

“Maaayyybbeeeee,” Brian sniggered, smirking.

“You, sir, are evolving into a chaotic evil. Stay in your lane, Thomas,” the dark haired boy pointed menacingly at Brian, who laughed.

“Make me,” he growled, grinning impishly.

“OOOKAAAY GONNA STOP YA THERE, BUDDY,” Kate yelled, fully fed up with Brian’s smug behaviour. “TIME FOR SLEEP,” she clapped her hands, heading towards her bag of clothes, and pulling out pajamas. “AIN’T GONNA BE NO SIN ON MY WATCH,” she declared.

They all shared a good laugh, readying themselves for sleep.

“Toby, my man,” Kate laughed, “I’m counting on you, keep these two in line,”

Toby snickered, “Since w-when were you i-in-in charge??”

“..I am the best option here,”

“I’m o-older than yo-u, and als-also not drunk,”

“Mnmn.. but I am the best option here,” Kate concluded.

“I’ll let them fuck i-if you’re not careful,” The brunet threatened.

“We’re not /that/ drunk,” Tim declared from the other side of the room.

“I don’t trust people influenced by the alchohols,” Kate squinted.

“You’re crazy,” Toby snickered, nose scrunching in his smile.

 

* * *

 

“I want to eat all the candy and snacks and I’m not really hungry right now.” Kate said to no one in particular, staring at the ceiling.

“I w-worry about you som-sometimes.”

“You probably should. I’m so tired right now, even though I’m ninety percent sure I got eight hours of sleep.”

“O-okay but like no joke, a-are you al-alr- are y-ou alright?”

“TMI but I think I’m gonna start my period.”

“Oh.” Toby echoed, unsure of what to really say to that. “Th-that sucks.”

“It does suck, but it’s also kind of a relief?” She ran her hand through her long hair. “It means that I’m actually fucking eating enough to where I’m healthy enough to have a baby.”

Toby gave her a confused look, not understanding what she was trying to convey.

She rolled her eyes at his befuddled look, “I haven’t had my period in over a year.”

“Doesn’t th-that me-mean you’re pr-pregnant or somethi-something?”

“Do I look like I gave birth to a child, dimwit?”

“I-I mean, no.. b-but usually w-when you’re y-young you don-,”

Kate cut him off, “I wasn’t getting enough nutrients for a long time and now I am. Woo I’m healthy now.” She summed up what Toby was not comprehending. “God you are /gay/,”

Toby snorted, “N-No I’m not.”

“Well you certainly haven’t ever been with- or even /around/ a girl for more than fifteen minutes.”

“I’ve b-been around you f-for like two we-weeks now.”

The teenager pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “Do we have any cash, or are we gonna have to steal some?” She asked the older boy.

“I have l-like.. ten bucks.” Toby stated. “But,” he grabbed the wallet off the nightstand and pulled out $50, “I’m sure Brian won’t m-mind.” He shrugged, grinning.

“To the convenience store!” Kate proclaimed, getting off the bed and slipping shoes on.

 

“W-we’ll be back, we’re g-going to the sto-store.” Toby informed the two boys sitting at the bar.

“Toby, we really don’t need to go throwing out money right now.” Tim sighed.

“It’s fo-for Kate.”

“How does that change anyth-,”

Toby cut the dark haired boy off, “Feminine n-necessity.”

“Go on ahead.” Tim waved the younger boy off.

“Don’t spend too much money.” Brian added. “But let her get some chocolate or somethin’.” He smiled softly.

Toby shared the smile, “Will d-do.” He met Kate in the lobby and off they went on their journey to the convenience store.

 

“D-Do you uhm, like, n-need both or so-something?” Toby asked, pointing to the box of tampons and package of pads hesitantly, red in the face.

“Uh, they’re nice to have.” Kate said, “And I’m not a huge fan of tampons, but they’re lower mantinence than pads, and I don’t imagine I’ll be doing too much moving, so,” She shrugged, “Yeah.”

Toby nodded, chewing his lip absentmindedly. “Oh, um, B-Brian said you should ge-get yourself some ch-chocolate or somethi-something.” He said quietly.

“Oh!” Kate smiled, “Now, /he/ knows how to treat a lady!” She grabbed a Snickers and a king-sized chocolate bar.

She put her things up on the checkout counter and the cashier gave a solemn nod, scanning the items and putting them in a bag.

* * *

“Would you like a bite of my Snickers?” Kate offered, holding it out to him.

“I would l-love a bite o-of your Snick-Snickers.” He smiled, taking a chunk out of the candy bar.

“True friendship.”

“Agreed.” Toby giggled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 25 chapters and 50000 here we come


	24. Basically filler but you're still gonna read it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, dirt.” Kate nudged the brunet.
> 
> “D-Did you just call me dirt?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not worth a one month wait.  
> Barely enough plot or humor to make it worthwhile to even read. Sorry about that. Kind of been in a weird funk. School is draining as fuck lmao.  
> Getting back into the groove, though. Last chapter should be up next week!

Toby laid in the queen-sized bed, on top of its soft white sheets, staring at the ceiling.

He sighed. “I’m bored.”

“I’m still jealous that I’m not older.” Kate scoffed.

Toby rolled his eyes. “Th-there’s more to growing u-up than alcohol.”

“Bet.”

The brunet snickered.

“Sex and drugs and alcohol and cars and taxes.”

“That’s not.. in-inaccurate..” Toby said carefully. “But it does have to-to do a lot with maturity.”

“Says you. You’ve only really started acting your age in the past weeks.”

“You make m-me feel my age.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“I-I’ll say it again.”

Kate giggled. “Well I’m glad I can make you feel like an adult.” She pulled her hair behind her ear.

“Mhm.”

They fell silent again.

“We’re leaving tomorrow, right?” Kate asked.

“I th-think.”

“One more kill, ya think?”

“I’m betting t-two.”

“Five bucks.”

“Deal.” Toby smirked.

* * *

“You have all your stuff packed?” Tim asked, surprised.

Toby nodded, sitting on top of his bag, grinning at the older boy.

“Shit, are we leaving now?” Kate jumped up from the bed, grabbing her things off the floor.

“Ten minutes.” The dark-haired man warned.

“Toby get over here and help me.” Kate squawked.

The brunet rolled his eyes before doing as he was told, getting her things from the bathroom and checking under the beds to make sure they weren’t leaving anything behind.

“Did y-you fall ba-back to sleep?”

“No, I just major spaced out.” Kate laughed at herself. “God dammit.”

Tim took his bags out to the car, leaving the hotel room door propped open.

The teen looked around, checking everywhere she’d put her things.

“You g-got it all?”

“Maybe.”

The dark eyed boy snickered, zipping up Kate’s bag. “Tie y-your shoes.” He pointed out.

She stifled a groan, quickly tying her laces before grabbing her bags and following Toby out.

* * *

Toby stared out the window at the rolling fields and plains perplexedly as Kate’s hand intertwined with his. She shook and tugged at his hand, bringing his skittish gaze to her hazel eyes.

“You okay? You look pale..” Kate’s voice flouted with worry.

He blinked, taking his time to process what she said. “Ye-Yeah.” He pulled his hand out of hers.

Her face contorted into a look of self-hatred and flusterment, having not meant to sound so worried. She turned her gaze out her window, rendering the both of them quiet and dissociative.

She was snappy when he tried to engage in conversation, and with a sigh, he went back to staring out the window.

* * *

Time could never make up its mind, going too fast or far too slow. The majority of the day had gone fast, but the night seemed to never end.

Toby lay in bed listening to Kate stir next to him. He blinked in the unfamiliar darkness of the motel room, staring at nothing as his breath rested in his throat. He’d dare not move, though part of him wanted to do something. Get up, snuggle up to the teen, crawl into bed with Tim and Brian, SOMETHING.

Instead, he lay there, petrified. No matter how many times he closed his eyes and counted his breathing, it just wasn’t working. He felt restless.

He couldn’t even put himself out of it enough to toss and turn, he was too focused on listening to the hazel eyed girl sleep.

Creep, much?

It was almost as if he were infatuated with her, but he wasn’t. Truly, he wasn’t. She interested him at best.

The brunet was hyper-aware of everything and anything. Sounds of soft breathing, the texture of the sheets he lay under, texture of the pillow. Sounds of an occasional car outside, and an overall dull silence.

Torture.

This was torture.

* * *

“How’d you sleep last night?” Brian looked up from his food to the older boy.

“Mn,” Tim shrugged, skillfully spreading jelly on his toast. “Alright. You?”

The peanut-haired boy shrugged, looking expectantly at Kate.

“Fine.” She said between bites of scrambled eggs.

Finally, the tall boy looked to a very tired looking Toby.

“Nn,” Toby poked at the food on his plate, head held up with his fist.

“You look like a train wreck.” Kate spat amusedly.

The dark circles under his eyes said it all, and his dead gaze made the teen laugh.

“You gonna be alright?” Brian asked.

The brunet shrugged, forcing a fork-full of hashbrowns into his mouth.

This made the caramel-haired boy grimace lightly, worried, but he said nothing more, leaving Toby and his tired headache to himself.

* * *

The world seemed as melancholy as Toby was. Grey skies looking down upon them as they drove. Luckily, it seemed like they were making decent progress. They’d be home in a few days at most.

This little road trip thing had gone on a lot longer than any of them had anticipated, but it was so nice being away from the monotony of their home life, even if it was just a different kind of monotony.

Toby wasn’t quite sure why, but everything felt different. Like he’d changed as a person, and he needed to start anew.

He was no longer a little kid with two not-boyfriends that acted more as his parents at times.

He felt alienated. And tired. So very tired.

Sad thoughts spiraled deeper and darker into the back of his mind, pulling out sore topics and making him think about them. He was too tired and bored to pull himself out of it, despite very much disliking where his mind was going.

Finally, the sound of rain against the glass pulled him out of it, and he stared out, watching as their surroundings were coated in precipitation.

A small smile crept its way onto the brunet’s face. Life is weird. His life is weird. Whatever.

* * *

As nice as this trip was, it was fucking boring. Same bullshit of driving for way too long, stopping to eat, going to sleep in a motel. Each day would stretch by so slowly, it drove the brunet crazy. The tedious repeat made him feel as if he were living the same day over again, just with slightly different scenery.

Losing braincells wasn’t what it was chalked up to be.

 

“Hey, dirt.” Kate nudged the brunet.

“D-Did you just call me dirt?”

The teen ignored his question, “When we get home, we should make a book club.”

Toby was perplexed by this seemingly random idea, though intrigued. “Uhm.. ok-okay..”

“I have a few books I know of that’d you’d like. And I’m sure we can get Jane or Natalie or someone to join us.” She shrugged, pulling her hair behind her ear.

“Wh-what do you even.. like.. er- what do you even d-do in a book club??”

“I’m not sure. Club books. Club people with books? I’m just going off of what I’ve seen on TV.” Kate snickered. “We’ll all read a book.. aaand then we’ll.. um.. like.. review it.”

“Write a t-two paragraph essay ab-b-about the narrative arc.” Toby giggled.

Kate laughed, “Something like that.”

“Might as well.” Toby shrugged. “Between stalk-stalking and killing people, th-there’s not much else t-to really.. do.”

“That’s kinda why I suggested it. Can’t tell you how many braincells I lost trying to let time pass.”

They both snickered.

* * *

Toby gave Brian a curious look. Tim had been on the phone for the past hour, pacing around outside the motel room and talking quietly.

“What’s up?” The brunet asked.

Brian shook his head, “It’s fine.” He said quietly. “Just planning.”

“That d-doesn’t sound g-good.”

“We’re up to no good.”

Toby nodded. “True.”

The motel room was dark, and Toby wasn’t sure why Brian insisted on keeping almost all the lights off. Not like they were doing a drug deal or something. He rolled his eyes, wandering over to Kate, who sat on the floor up against a wall, reading in the dim light.

“Still on that bo-book?”

“I’m re-reading it.” She snickered.

“Fun,” The older boy snickered. “Guess you’re sl-sleeping with m-me.” He looked to the beds.

“Yay..” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t like sleeping with people.” She grinned at him.

“Beds ar-aren’t too small.”

“Still.”

“Soon you’ll have y-your own room, a-all to your-yourself!”

“I look forward to it.” She smiled, looking back to her book.

Toby sighed, laying himself on the bed, not sure of anything else to do.

He hadn’t anticipated falling asleep, but that’s what happened. In his shoes and everything. On top of the covers.

What a dork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue fic coming soon, wanna give y'all some time to settle after this ends though (AKA probably a week bcuz I can't control myself).  
> Comments and kudos are awesome.  
> Discord is ruby_rudd #5152


	25. An Ending Worse Than March 22nd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Uh,” The caramel haired boy messed with his hair. “No, but we can always ask.”
> 
> “We will.” Tim said firmly, looking out at the road before them, a light grimace on his face.
> 
> Brian exhaled at the older man softly, hands loosely on the steering wheel.
> 
> An uncomfortable silence fell upon the two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mery chrimiz  
> I couldn't get this chapter up in the word count as much as I wanted, but I really wanted it out before crimbo  
> Next chapter will be uploaded tomorrow, and will be a sneak peek into the epilogue fic
> 
> hold on to y'alls feelings

_The nights where Toby’s bedroom was warmer than his skin were nights he dreaded, but knew all too well. The nights where it was barely an exaggeration to say that sweat dripped down the brunet’s clammy body. The nights the bugs and frogs outside were so loud that he couldn’t hear his heartbeat. The nights he’d pull his quilt off his bed and ball it up on the ground, making it into a beanbag-chair of sorts. The nights he’d lay on his makeshift beanbag-chair in his briefs, with his bare feet against the scruffy grey carpet of his bedroom floor. The nights he’d lay his arm over his face and smell the shay-butter body wash his mother always bought him. The nights he felt drowsy, yet wide-awake. The nights he counted the freckles on his body, and in his later years sneak out of the house to count the stars above him. The nights that left him restless and paralyzed with boredom._

Toby sighed, looking out the car window at the scenery passing him by. He sensed a pattern of thoughts, and though he desperately didn’t want to think about ȚȟȄ ȘȗӎᶆỂɍ, or any summer for that matter, he reluctantly went with it.

_Evenings in his quaint neighbourhood, bare feet in the dry dirt, walking over gravel with ease as his feet had become callused from not wearing shoes. The sun beamed through the dark green leaves, and the sun was a medium orange, casting an almost hazy effect on everything around the brunet. The feeling of scraggly bark against his hands, the lush green grass in between his toes. The dry grass and thistles he’d always walk through barefoot when he crossed his yard to get the mail. The sound of the water splashing and swirling down at the creek, under the shade of large trees, Toby would play on the rounded rocks until the creek ran dry in late August of every year._

These thoughts and detailed reminders of textures he’d long forgotten brought a grin to his face.

_The bitter cold of summer nights when he’d sneak out onto the roof, or sit out on the worn down wooden porch, with its rough, old wood pricking the boy’s feet. He’d lay in the soft grass in his front yard and drown in the sounds of summer nights under the clear night sky. Watching meteors and comets and asteroids fly by his insignificant planet. Mapping constellations._

Toby missed these memories and experiences more than he’d ever realized.

_The feeling of cool, rough asphalt beneath him as he lay in the middle of the street, staring up at the blank, dark sky. He felt so bitter and melancholy inside of himself, a simmering discontent he’d grown used to._

Here it was, the memories he’d wish wouldn’t bubble up, but of course they always did.

_He’d walk until he reached streetlamps, then keep walking. Into town, looking at the neon signs of the closed local businesses. Ducking into alleys, parks, and neighbourhoods to evade cops and menacing silhouettes. Standing over a man sleeping on a park bench._

_Small green pills that did nothing plagued his days, but his nights were his solace. He’d lay in bed until the sun came up, or play with toys, or doodle, or go out. He’d long abandoned the rough surface of his roof. It wasn’t high enough off the ground._

_The forest beckoned him._

_Echoing his name when he let his guard down._

The forest, in hindsight, has never done him a damn bit of good.

Trying to get his mind off this, he found himself thinking about early memories of his childhood. Back when his family wasn’t such a mess, back when he wasn’t such a mess. Back when things were simpler, and he was happier. Ignorant and peppy, with a spring in his step. Well versed in hop-scotch and “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”.

Things were much different back then, which was part of what made looking back so fun.

.

“Yeah? What about it?” Kate asked over her shoulder.

The brunet shrugged. “I dunno. It j-just keeps coming t-to mind.”

“Hm.”

“What di-did you used to da-daydream about i-in sch-school?” He changed the subject.

“Uhh, surviving the apocalypse, and, ironically enough, killing people.”

Toby laughed.

She snickered along with him. “Yeah! There were a few kids I absolutely despised, and I always daydreamed about the many different ways of brutally murdering them! What about you?”

“I d-daydreamed about like, messin’ aro-around outside or b-being a ca-cat like a NORMAL PERS-SON.” The two giggled.

“Normie.”

“Reee.”

.

Toby sighed, body stiff from sitting in the same position for far too long. He cracked his knuckles, watching the scenery pass them by. He listened in on the conversation in the front seat.

“Tonight?”

“Or tomorrow.” Brian shrugged. “Soon.”

“Do you have anyone in particular?”

“Uh,” The caramel haired boy messed with his hair. “No, but we can always ask.”

“We will.” Tim said firmly, looking out at the road before them, a light grimace on his face.

Brian exhaled at the older man softly, hands loosely on the steering wheel.

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the two.

The taller boy’s mouth opened to say something, but after a moment of hesitation, he sighed, rolling his eyes to himself, shaking his head at the dark-haired boy. Neither of them spoke for a good hour.

They each looked as if they had something to say on the tip of their tongue, with barely enough willpower to keep their mouths shut, which left an uneasy, unsatisfied feeling in the small enclosed space.

Toby sat there, at first with a befuddled look on his pale face, but once he pondered what had just happened, and what the two in the front seat were doing, he almost burst out laughing.

It was muted, purposely so, but it was oh so obvious all the same. They were being passive aggressive towards each other.

The brunet couldn’t hide his amused and slightly surprised grin. Tim pouted in the passenger seat while Brian glared at the road. This was comedy gold.

It was almost unheard of for the two boys to bicker, especially not so seriously, but there they were, giving each other the cold shoulder. It seemed so silly and out of character, and it took a while to register what they were disagreeing on.

Once Toby realized the subject of the disagreement, and all its implications, it wasn’t very amusing. He was no longer gloating, instead he sat there uneasily, hoping it would pass soon.

He couldn’t say that he exactly felt the way Tim did, but he could at least understand where the dark-haired boy was coming from, and that left a bothersome graveness to the situation.

.

That day seemed to go surprisingly quickly, like how driving through somewhere familiar seems to go much faster than driving through somewhere you’ve never been. The scenery changed drastically over a long period of time. Occasionally going from urban, to rural, then suburban, then rural or urban again. Some towns were situated right up against the highway, while others were way out.

The sun set around 8, as they drove out of an urban area, and the surrounding area became dark. Melancholic country music played softly over the sound of the car going 70MPH on a road that was not the most up-kept or new.

Toby began to doze, the music lulling him into a shallow sleep he didn’t realize he needed.

He awoke abruptly, silent in fear and confusion before slowly calming himself down. He scanned his surroundings. Kate was dead asleep, slumped to her left, with the side of her forehead up against the glass window. This made the brunet uneasy, and he had to stop looking at her to reconcile himself.

Tim was asleep in the passenger seat. Brian stared out the windshield at the dim road which was only illuminated by the headlights. The light-haired man was quiet, and his breathing was so shallow that Toby could barely tell that the older boy was breathing at all.

Something about this was so very wrong, but Toby couldn’t quite figure out what. He felt a bit dejected and dizzy, but there was nothing to look at out of his window. There were no other cars on the highway, which wasn’t terribly unheard of, but it gave a spooky atmosphere. All alone. In the middle of nowhere.

The brunet could feel time stretch on forever, and he felt weak. The light of the display in the front showed the time of 11:52.

Why hadn’t they stopped for the night?

Toby felt suffocated, quivering meekly as if he hadn’t eaten in days. He wanted so desperately to speak up, but every time he gathered up the strength to open his mouth, the air seemed to thicken and smother him.

What was wrong?? What was so off??

The situation seemed to worsen when they caught up to a large semi-truck. Their headlights docilely showed off the surroundings, which looked like they were in the mountains. The scenery seemingly wrapped around them, giving off the feeling of being in a tunnel.

Toby felt himself sweating as they inched up next to the semi on the two-lane highway. He shouldn’t be so scared. They’d driven past semis before, and nothing bad ever happened. He was freaking himself out over nothing.

The driver of the large truck seemed to be rather tired, as he had difficulty keeping his vehicle steady. The truck would sway from side to side, barely crossing over the lines every so often.

Toby swallowed hard, cringing and cowering in his seat as they passed the semi-truck.

He felt so dizzy, his heart palpating more than it should. He wanted so badly to calm down, but he couldn’t. He wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t.

They kept up pace with the semi for too long, and Toby wanted to sob.

His scared eyes fixated on Kate’s forehead up against the glass. It seemed like the world was screaming, but it was also dead quiet. He didn’t like her head up against the glass. He didn’t. It hurt. He hurt.

Everything in his head ceased, and it clicked. It was dead silent. He came to this epiphany just as his eyes looked back to the semi, which tersely veered to the left, and the two boxes of metal with people in them collided.

The last thing his eyes looked upon was Kate’s forehead against the glass.


	26. Epilogue (Sneak Peek)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmmmmmmmst

The warm Californian air had been slowly getting colder as the days went by, with a chill in the breeze. Leaves turned firey colours and floated to the ground, littering sidewalks and yards. The dry leaves crunching beneath her feet, she quickened her pace, turning off of the sidewalk to a paved walkway that winded through a thicket of trees at the edge of the new development cookie-cutter neighbourhood.

The pathway was dark, but she could make out the distant orange glow of a streetlamp, illuminating over a well-hidden park. Upon reaching the illuminated area, she stopped, taking a moment to breathe-in the chilly air.

The trees stood tall, looming over the park ominously. There was a tennis court barely lit by the lamp, with leaves scattered over the coloured court. Benches scattered throughout the paved walkways, weathered wood showing its age.

She began walking again, shoving her cold hands in her pockets and shivering. The paved paths were starting to crack from weather and tree roots, which gave the park a dead feeling. Making her way through the park, she walked past a playset with slides and poles and platforms, everything a kid needs to entertain themselves.

Rosswood Park was mostly surrounded by trees, with the exception of the main entrance, which faced the parking lot and an older neighbourhood. Kate had grown familiar with the area, walking the streets at night like a stray cat. She passed a building with restrooms and a maintenance shed and finally passed a quaint gazebo. She passed the tall trees and small field, reentering the forest. The walking paths were not well kept up, she assumed it was the park manager trying to keep people out of the forest.

She walked for what seemed to be forever in the ever-colder depths of the red wood trees until finally arriving at a large, obscured abandoned looking building. She let herself in and made her way to her room, not bothering with pleasantries with the others.

Throwing her backpack onto her bed, she pulled off her dirt, sweat, and blood-stained jeans, sweater, and mask. She dug through the backpack, pulling out the papers she was instructed to retrieve, placing them on her desk adjacent her bed.

Sighing, Kate ran her hands through her tangled chestnut hair. She cursed under her breath as she picked out pajamas and took them to her bathroom.

Her shower was well deserved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can find the epilogue fic at https://archiveofourown.org/works/17141474  
> will be updated whenever  
> first chapter up tomorrow


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